Feeding the Rat by Al Alvarez (1988) Foreign Language

Feeding the Rat by Al Alvarez (1988) Foreign LanguageProfile of a climber. This is a biography of Mo Anthoine, a Fred Beckey type who climbed all over the world and didn't manage to make much of a name for himself, because he saw it as entirely besides the point. My introduction to this work came from a Swedish climber we met dirtbagging in Joshua Tree, who had painted "Feed the rat!" on the the side of the beat up sedan she was living out of. That tells you a lot, I think. The author has some literary

and very little ink spent on pitch-by-pitch topos

The book closes with a farcical appendix describing the climbers of the day

Select guidebook to the Caucasus mountain range in Georgia and Russia

The definitive book for the climbing history of the range

front and back of the boards

Hardcover book in excellent condition

Ascent is the annual journal of the Sierra Club

A spectacular guidebook to a spectacular range

The photography contained within is top-notch

A hefty old-school guidebook to Yosemite Valley

The picture attached to the listing is representative

with most falling between the French Alpine grades of F and D