Frank Smythe: 8 books

Frank Smythe’s fascinating book Kamet Conquered tells of his successful bid to make the first ascent of Kamet (7,756 metres) in 1931. Through Smythe, an experienced high-altitude mountaineer, the reader experiences all the tension, fatigue, discomfort and struggle of a major expedition but is also...

"Why do you climb?" The mountaineer has no answer to this question. The best things in the world cannot adequately be expressed in speech or print; they are part of the soul.' In Climbs and Ski Runs, Frank Smythe takes the reader on Alpine ski trips and Dolomite adventures, up first ascents...

Frank Smythe's Camp Six is one of the greatest Everest accounts ever written. It is the story of the 1933 Everest Expedition, in which Smythe, climbing alone after his partner Eric Shipton had turned back ill, reached a point perhaps higher than any man had done before - and some twenty years before...

We went to Kangchenjunga in response not to the dictates of science, but in obedience to that indefinable urge men call adventure.' In 1930, an expedition set out to climb the world's third-highest mountain, Kangchenjunga. As yet unclimbed, a number of attempts had been made on the peak, including...

In his delightful Valley of Flowers, mountaineer Frank Smythe takes you on a botanical expedition to the Garhwal Himalaya. Alongside the author, scale the steep craggy mountains and bathe in crystal clear pools; breathe in the scented foothills of the Himalaya and their carpets of peonies, roses,...

There is no holiday like a mountaineering holiday. For eleven months the mountaineer has sighed for the mountain wind on his cheek, for the lilt of the mountain stream, for the feel of rock in his hand, for the crunch of frozen snow beneath his feet, for the smell of mist and the fragrance of alp...

‘The predominant note was peace; not the faintest breeze ruffled the herbage and the silence was the silence of a vast ocean utterly calm, though always the sounds of the streams came to the ear as a soft, almost imperceptible cadence.’ In 1931, a party of British mountaineers—including...

A beautiful book on mountain climbing full of the romance and daring that characterized the pioneers of the sport. Full of stunning images .