While going about our daily operations, we received a phone call from a nice elderly lady who mentioned she had some mountaineering books she would like to donate. An address was taken down, and our intern Andrew headed over there to see what she had to offer. What he found, was a rare collection of books pertaining to both local and international mountaineering history. Most of the books are in pristine condition, and some of them may be impossible to find in a library. They include early editions of books by Heinrich Harrer, Maurice Herzog, and others.
We feel extremely privileged to happen upon such an amazing collection, and are discussing ways to share it with the general public. This is the second time in a year that we have received a book donation, and we feel that it would be wrong not to share such amazing and rare literary works with the climbing community.
Some of these books are so old (1907) that a route we often climb on Mt. Baker (the Coleman-Deming), is denoted on a map as "unexplored glaciers." It is pretty amazing (and humbling) to think of our predecessors and what their first ascents must have been like.
-Andrew Yasso
