Book Review

"Alpenglow", Written by Ben Tibbetts

Reviewed by John Allan

This is a sumptuous volume of artistic and photographic images of routes in the high Alps, researched, climbed, written up, drawn, photographed and published by the man himself. Much more than a coffee table extravaganza, it is both a historical and personal account of 4000m peak ascents by Tibbetts over the past ten years. He has climbed all the routes he describes - indeed he was the second Brit to complete all the 82 x UIAA 4000m peaks, and is a qualified Alpine guide resident in Chamonix.

He opens his heart in the writing, revealing with honesty when he has been scared witless, was thrilled with a night sky on torch-lit climbs, his photographs exulting in dawn panoramas with partner concentrating on the way ahead, not posing, looking well to each step. We feel the reluctant 2.00am starts, sleep deprivation, the hypoxia of altitude, the doubts and hesitations along the way; but also the watchful discipline demanded by changing conditions, where an awkward decision might need intuition as well as intelligence and insight born of hard experience. He admits that ‘…sometimes just good luck…’ keeps the show on the road. With crowded routes, a dislodged boulder ‘thirty metres above us…the size of a football…coming directly for us…bounced once... glancing blow…I was shaking uncontrollably…finally out of the terror zone.’ He admits to the doubts and insecurities of the night before a route, that cold chill of uncertainty with deteriorating weather and still the crux ahead, thunder throwing up overhead, and lightning fizzing with energy.

But there are moments of transcendence, after he has snapped his photographic fill, when he can gaze out across a vast landscape and reflect that ‘making drawings and photos in these savage landscapes… give my life purpose’. Here at last his humanity and humility become at one with nature. He reflects that ‘…moments in the mountains are so often far more potent than any words, photographs or memories…’. And so we, the readers, once again find ourselves heading back there, if only because we have now armchaired our way through photographs that reminded us of profound experiences we yearn to repeat.

‘Alpenglow’ by Ben Tibbetts, ISBN: 978-1-9161231-0-6,
available from Cordée, price £50 incl free packing and postage; weight 2260g.
Also available in French, translated by Valentine Fabre, Tibbetts’ partner in life and climbs.

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