I thought this weeks reading was highly interesting because it provided us with a look back on an event that had already occurred and that we had moved past. For the majority of the semester, it would seem, that we moved forward chronologically visiting new adventures and new climbs and new problems facing climbing where as this one allowed for us to reanalyze a climb that had a semi-contreversial climber in the form of Herzog.  It is this fact that interested me so much in the text.

In the text Roberts seeks to challenge the traditional narrative of the 1950 ascent of Annapurna and give credit and fame to the other climbers that also made the climb alongside Herzog.  I found this extremely interesting because generally we hear one climbers account and that is it and for those of us who do not delve deeper into the climbing community and the other stories told by mountaineers we sometimes are forced to take the texts at face value.  However, this analyze of the famous climb allowed for us to gain a new perspective and to show that Herzog was not as truly in control of the climb as he would have liked us to believe through his text.  Indeed, it is mentioned in the text by Roberts that there were challenging opinions on the climb and that it was not quite as hunky dory as Herzog would like us to believe he encountered issues with disagreement and the entire scenario was a little more messy than one would have previously believed.  I believe that it is crucial to give credit to the other climbers because mountaineering is truly a team sport one cannot climb without the support of another and sometimes it takes many in order to get the necessary emotional and psychical support for a journey up a mountain.  I think as a historical writer Roberts does a very good job of presenting this other side and giving the other climbers the credit they so rightly deserved but were denied by the original writings in Annapurna by Herzog. I think that it can be easy on occasion to overlook the smaller players in an expedition and revere those that write about the climb after it has occurred. However, I also believe it is crucial to keep in mind that there is generally others on the climb that for better or worse greatly impacted the climb and the journey up the mountain.

In addition to this thought it is mentioned in another’s blog post that Roberts wrote other works that seek to challenge the traditional narrative of famous climbs.  Naturally I looked into it and I found what he was talking about and while I have not read these other texts I’m glad that there is an author that is reanalyzing these other climbs and providing a fresh look and opinion on them because I believe that that is crucial when endeavoring to getting the whole perspective of history. In this sense especially I believe that Roberts did a top notch job.