Alpine Warriors

By Bernadette McDonald

A sweeping history of Slovenian alpinism and the small mountain nation whose climbers helped reshape modern Himalayan climbing.

Bernadette McDonald traces the rise of Slovenian alpinism against the political upheaval of wartime and postwar Yugoslavia. The Julian Alps provided generations of climbers with a steep limestone training ground, while organized training and state-supported expeditions helped Slovenian and other Yugoslavian alpinists reach the Himalaya from the 1960s onward.

By the 1970s, Yugoslavian teams were climbing the 8,000-metre peaks. Slovenia's climbers became increasingly prominent, bringing the skills developed on the north faces and sharp ridges of their home mountains to the highest ranges on earth. Political and economic turmoil intensified after Tito's death in 1980, and Slovenia declared independence in 1991, but the country's climbing culture continued to produce ambitious expeditions and influential alpinists.

Alpine Warriors places those achievements within their political and cultural setting and asks how a nation of roughly two million people developed such a powerful mountaineering tradition. McDonald brings a little-known chapter of European and Himalayan climbing history into focus through the athletes, institutions, conflicts and ideas that shaped Slovenian alpinism.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1771601094
• ISBN13: 9781771601092
• Release Date: September 2015
• Publisher: Rocky Mountain Books Incorporated
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 9.1"