Mountains in Bolivia (First Edition, Inscribed by Author)

The privately published memoir of the Austrian émigré physicist who brought skiing to Bolivia and made first ascents in the Cordillera Real, inscribed by him.

Alfred Z. “Fred” Hendel was born in Vienna in 1916 and fled Austria after the Anschluss in 1938. He spent some seventeen years in Bolivia, where he taught at the University of La Paz and worked at the cosmic-ray station on Chacaltaya, and he helped build a ski lodge and South America’s first ski lift there. After a Sorbonne doctorate he moved to the physics faculty of the University of Michigan in 1959. He made the first ascent of the south ridge of Huayna Potosí in 1963 with Paul Barker and of the north ridge of Illimani in 1967. In this book he recalls how he and a few friends introduced skiing to Bolivia in 1939 at some 17,000 feet, built a road and a lodge, and made first ascents. He also tells of rescues from crevasses, of being rescued after an avalanche buried him, and of an episode in which a swastika was raised on a summit near La Paz and removed by his friends. A companion volume, Revolutions in Bolivia, was published by the same press in the same year. Aventura Press was the author’s own imprint, which explains why the book is so uncommon in the trade.

First edition, first printing (full number line, 10 to 1, to the copyright page), inscribed by the author to the first blank. Octavo. viii, 176pp. Illustrated with black-and-white photographs by the author and drawings by Eric Simon, with maps and an illustrated glossary of climbing terms. Pale blue cloth, illustrated and lettered in black, in the original pictorial dust jacket, unclipped ($25). Fine in near fine dust jacket. The jacket is a bit shelf faded to the spine, otherwise fine. The volume is fine, clean and bright throughout. W. Williams blind stamp to lower title.

Not currently on display in store. For viewing or more information, please contact: rarebooks@harryhartog.com.au

Catalogue Number: HH000878