BOOK REVIEW AND PROFILE

Haberl pursues his

passion for a

ONE of the most famous oz
quotes to come out of the :
20th century is attributed to

a mountain climber.

Asked why he would risk life and
limb to stand on top of one of the
world’s highest peaks, he quipped,
“Because it’s there.” q

Decades later, that simple philos-

-ophy remains the most succinct
answer to the eternal question: Why?

In his new book, Risking Adventure:
Mountaineering Adventures Around the World,
Whistler mountaincer Jim Haber] poses that
very same question. But he has no answer. Not
because he’s hiding some secret truth he dis-
covered while becoming the first Canadian to
stand atop K2, but because, if there’is an
answer, he hasn't discovered it yct.

“All T tried to do was pose the questions and

. try and bring the read-
er to where I am now,”
’ Haber! says of his sec-
| ond book. “I don’t
want to tell people
how to live their lives. *
I don’t want to scem
like I have all the
answers, because I cer-
tainly don’t.”
Instead, Haber! (pro-
nounced “Hay-Burl™)
Set Out to express 2
philosophy about pur-
» sing passions, not
explaining them.
“For me it happens to
be mountain climbing
and adventure,” he says
- of his passion.
er “Whether it’s a musi-
.cian or a businessman, or if you want to be a
“good father, a good mother, we all have pas-

"sions.

- “All I’m trying to say is to take that chance

|. with the way you live your life.”

His first book, K2: Dreams and Reality,

~ “chronicled the biggest chance and risk the heli-

ski guide had ever taken: climbing the second
highest mountain in the world without oxygen.
Haberi made it to the top, but his longtime
friend and climbing partner, Deep Cove’s Dan
Culver, fell to his death during the descent after
the nwo friends stood on the summit 8,611
. Metres above sea level. The subsequent media
blitz thrown at Haber! when he arrived back in
Canada had him reliving the tragedy day after
day. Having dabbied in writing magazine arti-
cles, he decided to work through his emotions
by putting them down on paper.
K2: Dreams and Reality was a runaway suc-
_ cess. He wrote the first draft in nine days, and
’.. self-published the book just nine weeks later.
To date, it has sold over 70,000 copies in’
Canada. And the slide shows Haber! presented
while promoting the book were, in a word,
unforgettable.
“After the K2 book I didn’t envision this

“Kndrew McCredie

book,” he says of
Risking Adventure.
“I don’t even con-
sider myself a
writer; I still call
myselfa mountain
guide.”

But writing had
now become
another passion,

; and with his first
book doing well, he drafted a
proposal for his second attempt.

The proposal. was a five-chap-
ter book, with each chapter
highlighting an adventure from
cach continent. K2 was not
included in the original proposal.

Raincoast Books of Vancouver showed inter-
est, but taid Haberl they wanted one of the
chapters to be on K2 because, “that’s what
you're known for,” Haberl recalls. They also
told him they wanted a chapter on Alaska’s
Denali (Mount McKinley), not his proposed
piece on the Devil’s Thumb (also in Alaska).

“I thought about it for quite a while because
T didn’t want to revisit the K2 book,” he says.
“T went back and told them I had angle on K2
that I was happy with, but I’m going to stick
with the Devil's Thumb, because that is what
the book’s about.” .

Of the five adventures — climbing K2,
climbing the Devil’s Thumb, ski mountaineer-
ing in the Himalayas, climbing Mounts Kenya
and .ilimanjaro, and a rescue in the High
Andes — the Devil’s Thumb chapter is the only
one to tell a tale of failure. Less than 30 metres
from the top, Haberl and his two climbing
partners were turned back by bad weather.

After numerous attempts to reach the 2,767
metre summit and more than three weeks on
the mountain. the trio failed.

He writes: I knew my feelings of regret were
part of something I had learned, part of the com-
petitive, achievement-oriented drive that our soci-
ety had bred into me. I battled those proud emo-
tions with the knowledge that the route was classic
and that we bad climbed it in good style in the
company of one another.

Stunning coior photographs from many of
Haberl’s adventures accompany Risking
Adventure’s clean prose. In fact, it was a photo
that managed to solve the biggest problem the
author was having.

“{ struggted with the introduction the whole
time,” he recalls. “The managing editor wanted
more philosophy, more discussion about risk
taki ”

dventure

Uncomfortable with what he considered to
be preaching, Haberl found a solution at the
eleventh hour.

“It go to the point where the book was on
the design table,” he says, adding that it just so
happened the editor had left. for a two-week
vacation: “There was a new editor and it just
came to me” dth th

fe chopped the entire six paragraphs that
troubled him and replaced them with a full-
page color photo of Keith Reid climbing the

Toot The veil of illusion shattered |

HELL-FIRE and lightening
violently destroy the “House
of God” so named in
medieval Tarot decks.

Edifices erected by man lay
shattered as dismembered human
figures plunge into the depths from
the battlements.

The fire breathing spirit-dragon
Dis and Shiva the Destroyer (from
East Indian myth) cause these man-
made structures to tumble. Small
.wonder this card is also known as
“War.”

Another fitting, affiliation is
Phuto, the higher octave of Mars.
This potentate of the Zodiac is syn-
onymous with annihilation, wans-

formation and rebirth. The deeper
teaching one of catharsis, restora-
tion and profound healing inherent
in this symbolism.

The eye of Horus the Egyptian
God of Perception stares down

from the Tower, revealing his truth.

Masked in the form cf material-
ism or relationship issues, in mental
prejudice or perhaps through spiri-
tual pride, the constructs we create
prevail.

Repressed and ignored, these
sentiments cascade into violence,
aggression and in certain instancys
explode into war. The Divine inter-
cedes, erupting with great force ...
the veit of illusion shattered.

The haloed snake illustrates the

newly adopted awareness and the
necessity te shed old doctrines. The
dove on wing bears an olive branch,
the symbol of peace. Grace is grant-
ed during times of catastrophe tes-
tament to the presence of the
Divine in and around us always.
This arcanum stands above all oth-
ers in its portrayal of holistic purifi-
cation and restoration of ego.

The tearing down of out-moded
doctrines; purging yourself of the
supertluous while maintaining a
gentleness towards yourself and the
process you have instigated are indi-
cated when drawing this card.

For information on Tarot please
call Diana E. Warwick at 926-9027
or e-mail: dwarwick@direct.ca.

Suggested Reading

© Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount
Everest Disaster, by Jon Krakauer. Villard Books.
199

@ Alaska Ascents: World Class Mountaineers tell
their stories, cdited by Bill Sherwonit. Alaska
Northwest Books. 1996.

@ Canadians on Everest, by Bruce Patterson.
Detselig Enterprises. 1990.

© Magnificent Mountain Women, by Janet
Robertson. University of Nebraska Press. 1990.
© High Asia: An Mlustrated History of the 7,000
Metre Peaks, by Jill Neate. The Mountaineers.
1989. .

© The Everest Years: A Climber’s Life, by Chris
Bonington. Viking Penguin. 1987

@ Ascent: Two Lives Explored. The Autobiograplies
of Edmund and Peter Hillary. Doubleday. 1986.
© Seven Summits, by Dick Bass and Frank Wells
with Rick Ridgeway. Warner Books. 1986.

© The Mountaincers: Famous Climbers in.
Canada. Hurtig Publishers. 1979.

Sword on the Great Wall at Squamish.

Asked what climbing and writing share,
Haber! doesn’t hesitate: “They’re both team
pursuits. I really need the help on the book:
thing. I sit down and write it, then I give chap-
ters out to friends — friends that have been on
trips with me. For me it’s feedback. I write
something, and for me it’s quite clear in my
mind, but I end up leaving details out. For me
it’s really important that I get this input.

“T couldn’e even list everyone who helped
out.” (But he tried. Thirty-one people plus staff
at Raincoast Books receive acknowledgement.)

Risking Adventure is dedicated to his wife
Sue. They were married in June and ‘are cur-
rently building a home ir: Whistler. Haberl will-
spend the winter, as always, in the mountains,
guiding heli-ski trips. .

His next adventure? Alaska in the spring.

His next book? He’s not sure exactly what it
will be, but he is sure there will be one.

(Risking Adventure is available on the North
Shore at Park Royal Shopping Centre, Cale’s
bookstores and Books on Bowen.)

Sambuca’s
byte jogs
memory

Dear Mr. Fizz: How
can I estimate, in
megabytes, the
amount of memory in *
my brain? “
Fizz: Ii is like a stu-».
pid man.who has a> 35’
dream; he knows about
it but he cannot tell ir.-
Save a few bytes for. this
delightful concoction:
Flatliner, X oz...
Sambuca, 4-5 drops
Tabasco sauce, ¥ oz. ~ |
white tequila. Pour the ».
Sambuca into a glass: «
and float a few drops
of Tabasco on top.
Carefully float the.
tequila on top of the
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Dear Mr Fizz: What .~
use is Vitamin C to an
orange? : a
Fizz: If you really.
want to pass this barri-’
er, you should feel like |
drinking a hot iron ball
that you can neither
swallow nor spit out. If
you simply must medi-
tate upon this conun-
drum, speed the
process with an 7
Express:.1 4 oz. Triple”
See with 4 oz. vodka.” .:

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“strain into a chilled’

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‘Dear’ Mr, Fizz:.

glass. 2
it ©:
are the chances of the”
Year 2000 computer- |
date problem causing ..:
worldwide economic < ~
meltdown? my
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verse is an empty shell. «
wherein your mind. frol-
ics infinitely. Here isa. ~*
sphere of change. . °°"
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sume change. Wheel: © |
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oz. Amaretto with 2 02. :
dry Vermouth. Mix it
up in an old-fashioned -
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nish with 2 lemon twist.
Dear Mr. Fizz:

. Apparently we share

98% of our genetic
makeup with pygmy
chimpanzees. t
proportion of my
genetic makeup do [
share with any mem-

_ber of the human

race?

Fizz: Ships cannot
remain where the water’ |
is too shallow. One
thing you can count on
with humans, whether
they can interbreed or
not, the first thing thevse
do when they meet is
try to find out. A toast
to life with simian dig-
nity and a Fallen Angel
in hand: 1 4% oz. gin, 4
tsp. white Creme de
Menthe, 1} dash bitters,
juice of Aalemon. — “aes
Shake well with cracked
ice and strain into a
cocktail glass. Garnish
with a cherry.