The Naked Mountaineer

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The Naked Mountaineer

Misadventures of an Alpine Traveler

Steve Sieberson
Foreword by Lou Whittaker

272 pages
1 map

Paperback

October 2014

978-0-8032-4879-3

$19.95 Add to Cart
eBook (PDF)
Ebook purchases delivered via Leaf e-Reader

October 2014

978-0-8032-8653-5

$19.95 Add to Cart
eBook (EPUB)
Ebook purchases delivered via Leaf e-Reader

October 2014

978-0-8032-8651-1

$19.95 Add to Cart

About the Book

The Naked Mountaineer recounts a series of solo journeys to some of the world’s most exotic peaks in places such as Switzerland, Japan, and Borneo. However, it is far from the typical heroic mountain-expedition book. Although Steve Sieberson did reach many summits, in most cases his travels were more memorable for what he encountered along the way than for the actual climbing. His real adventures involved peculiar people, strange foods, and tropical diseases, rather than pitons, ice axes, and carabiners. On the Matterhorn he met an English alpinist who reveled in naked selfies, he stumbled into a cockfight in a Balinese village, and on a volcano in Italy he was mistaken for a famous singer by an insistent fan.

The Naked Mountaineer offers mountain-themed travel stories with a wide-eyed view of the world, while presenting irreverent commentary on climbers and their peculiar sport. These are rollicking tales, filled with the unexpected.

 

Author Bio

Steve Sieberson began his mountaineering career in the late 1970s in Washington State and eventually became a climb leader for one of the country’s premier outdoor organizations, the Mountaineers. He spent sixteen years as a member of Seattle Mountain Rescue, practiced international law in Seattle for twenty-five years, and is now a professor of law at Creighton University in Omaha.

Lou Whittaker is the dean of American mountaineering and the country’s foremost professional mountaineering guide.

 

Praise

"For climbing and travel enthusiasts, this will be a treasured read."—Jay Freeman, Booklist starred review

"Take a walk on the weirder side of mountain life with Sieberson, whose alpine misadventures include bizarre local cuisine, insistent music fans, and oh yes, the Englishman who revels in taking naked selfies. . . . This delightfully anecdotal memoir hops from Norway to Japan to Greece, among other high altitude locales."—Backpacker.com


"Author and lawyer Sieberson enjoys his hobby, which has taken him around the globe and to the top of many of the world's mountains. His mountaineering trials and tribulations provide ample fodder for this informative and amusing book."—Sara Miller Rohan, Library Journal


"The Naked Mountaineer is a delightful commentary on Sieberson's global travels and opportunities to climb many of the world's highest and most challenging mountains."—Rod Wagner, NCB News

“It is Sieberson’s unabashed enthusiasm for climbing that is exposed here, and his bare appraisal of it all is engagingly straightforward. The Naked Mountaineer guides us up mountains—including his beloved Matterhorn—and offers an insightful travelogue. The observations are fresh and yet familiar, as welcome as clean socks from a well-worn rucksack at the end of a long day’s hike.”—Kyle Wagner, travel and fitness editor for the the Denver Post 
 

“From Western Washington to Italy to Indonesia this is a fun and delightful book. For anyone who has traveled or wished to travel to remote places Steve Sieberson’s The Naked Mountaineer gives an entertaining and humorous account of his mountain adventures and the characters he met along the way.”—Mike Mahanay, president of the Washington Alpine Club

Table of Contents

Foreword by Lou Whittaker    
Preface    
Acknowledgments    
Prologue: Where Climbers Are Made    
1. The Naked Mountaineer: Matterhorn, Switzerland, 14,692'    
2. Pitching the Horseshoe: Snowdon, Wales, 3,560'    
3. The Unorthodox Climber: Mount Athos, Greece, 6,670'    
4. Climbing Backward: Gorge of Samaria, Greece    
5. No Gods but Me: Mount Olympus, Greece, 9,570', and Mount Olympus, Washington, 7,965'    
6. Crawling for Sushi: Mount Fuji, Japan, 12,388'    
7. Knickers in a Twist: Mount Vesuvius, Italy, 4,200'    
8. Twin Peaks in Paradise: Gunung Agung, Bali, Indonesia, 10,308'    
9. Expedition to Nowhere: Carstensz Pyramid, Papua, Indonesia, 16,024'    
10. The Mountaineer Unplugged: Mount Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia, 13,435'    
11. Northern Exposure: Galdhøpiggen, Norway, 8,100'    
12. So the Last Shall Be First: Mount St. Helens, Washington, 9,677' and 8,363'    
Epilogue: The Sirens’ Call   

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