Essays from the Edge gathers fifty years of selected writing by Dennis Gray, one of British climbings most influential voices. These twenty-one essays, spanning one of British mountaineerings most exciting periods, provide a compelling narrative of a life studying the art of climbing and of living it first-hand on the cliffs and mountains of the world in the company of some of the sports most colourful characters of the last century.
Vivid portraits anchor the collection: the legendary Joe Brown and Don Whillans, members of the Rock and Ice Club; American pioneers Royal Robbins, Jeff Lowe and Warren Harding; and unsung originals such as the Barley brothers, Robin and Tony. A wide-ranging 1973 interview with climber Allan Austin gives a fascinating insight into the Yorkshire scene of the early 1970s. Denniss commentary expands to cover other issues, such as the 1932 Kinder Mass Trespass, climbings debut in the Olympics and the development of modern rock climbing in Belgium.
Broad in scope yet precise in observation, Essays from the Edge celebrates the values and spirit of British climbing.
Foreword
Editors Preface
PEOPLE
Sir Leslie Stephen (18321904)
The Round of Existence & Marco Pallis
The Cold Mountain Poet: Gary Snyder
The Baron: Joe Brown
The Villain: Don Whillans
Big in the UK: Royal Robbins, Jeff Lowe & Warren Harding
An Interview with Allan Austin
The Barley Brothers
Whisper the Wind: John Syrett & Roger Baxter-Jones
PLACES
Mountain Painters & Shan Shui
Falak Sar: the Road to Heaven
In the Land of the Morning Calm
Belgium: a Cockpit in the Development of Modern Rock Climbing
OPINIONS
Trespass
Let There Be Light
Olympic Dreams
REVIEWS
Unknown Pleasures by Andy Kirkpatrick
Mastermind by Jerry Moffatt
Crazy Sorrow: the life and death of Alan Mullin
Hard Rock: Great British Rock Climbs from VS to E4
AChreag Dhearg: Climbing Stories of the Angus Glens
Acknowledgements
Dennis Gray began climbing in 1947, aged eleven. By fifteen he had tested himself on Yorkshires gritstone outcrops, Skye, the Lake District, North Wales, Glen Coe and, in winter, Ben Nevis. After school he studied printing and ran a photogravure unit reproducing Old Master prints. During national service in Manchester in 1954 he joined the Rock and Ice Club, climbing with Joe Brown and Don Whillans. He first visited the Alps in 1955, climbing in the Dolomites and Alps with Brown, before making the first ascent of the Manikaran Spires in 1961. Throughout the 1960s he organised expeditions to the then-unclimbed Gauri Sankar (7,134 metres) and, in 1966, to Alpamayo (5,947 metres) in Perus Cordillera Blanca; the expedition film of which, The Magnificent Mountain, won best mountain film at Trento. He also climbed in Yosemite. He went on to study social psychology at Leeds and in 1968 led a successful expedition to Mukar Beh (6,069 metres) in Himachal Pradesh. After a short spell in Kenya he returned to Britain in 1970. Appointed the British Mountaineering Councils first professional national officer in 1971 and its general secretary in 1974, he served for eighteen years. His first autobiography, Rope Boy, appeared in 1970. With his former wife he launched the Boxing Day Chevin Chase in 1979, a seven-mile race in Otley attracting over 1,500 runners. After leaving the BMC in 1989 he led climbs and treks in the Himalaya and Morocco, then returned to academia in China, lecturing at four universities. He completed three research projects at Oxford and later served a term as a Churchill Fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge. Mountain Lover, his second autobiography, was published in 1990, and later books included stories, a novel, essays and poems. In 1995, he cofounded the Leeds Wall, the UKs second climbing centre. He has travelled to over sixty countries and remains in touch with friends worldwide.
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