The Art of Freedom, a biography of Voytek Kurtyka by Bernadette McDonald reviewed by Stevie Haston.

So looked in my mail box, and found what I been waiting for-the book arrived. Like a bright cloud on a grey day, it's a happy sight,  promise of a change in the weather, or in this case a good few hours immersed in mountains.

 the long awaited book.

Is it better to do or to read about the doing by others? In the case of Voytek, maybe we all can just rest calm, lie on the sofa and enjoy his climbs. Can one enjoy the first ascent of the mythic West Face of Gasherbrum 1V, which Kurtyka and Schauer did all those years ago? Can one visit the day when standards were perhaps frozen? We will see, for as yet the book is open, or opened at odd photos which sometimes trigger emotions and memories. 

John Porters photo of the 1978 team of Porter, Zurek, Kurtyka, and Dirty Alex MacIntyre.

I have been climbing in the morning,  Free Dived in the early afternoon, and now I will vicariously share steep, startling difficult climbs, on my sofa. In the picture above you will see a big rucsacs carried by slight men, their houses and futures loaded on their backs, refugees from the modern world trying to rediscover pre second world war commitment. Kurtyka has often hidden, or ducked interviews, and celebrity, perhaps this book will tell us why. Soon I will share my impressions of this book, of this great climber, until then take it from me, the thoughts of some of these climbs sends shivers down my weak spine. Bye from the sofa.


The Book is published by Vertebrate publishing, and Rocky Mountain Books Canada.