Michael Wejchert, Hidden Mountains ** 1/2

Hidden Mountains is the true story of two couples who attempt an unnamed and unclimbed peak in the titular mountain range in Alaska. The couples were serious climbers of the weekend warrior variety; an Alaskan expedition was perhaps beyond their skill level, due to logistics rather than the technical climbing difficulty. One of the men ends up critically injured in a fall, requiring rescue by an elite mountain rescue unit.

The book has all the elements necessary for an exciting and compelling mountaineering tale, but from the start something annoyed me.  Was it the sketchiness of the mountaineering history that the author provides? No. Was it the judgmental tone that crept in when he discussed sport climbing? No. The portrait of legendary climber David Roberts that contradicted everything I knew about him from his books? Well, yes, that did irritate me and make me question the author's credibility.

Eventually I realized that the issue was a lack of relevance and perspective. The idea that sport climbing and improved communication technologies have led to riskier ventures is interesting, but what does it have to do with the story at hand? And should we lament the change or celebrate it?

The book also has organizational issues. As a professional writer myself, I know that you need to keep the reader focused on the task at hand. If you've got interesting background details or tangents, they need to come before or after the main story. For example, the full resume of the helicopter pilot should not intrude on the drama of Emmett's rescue. 

The chapter about the helicopter pickup becomes positively Inception-like in its nested stories: the pilot performed a similar rescue many years before; the climbers in that earlier rescue had completed many important ascents and recently contracted Guillain-Barre syndrome; those climbers left their satellite phone at base camp and eventually called a district ranger at Denali National Park; that ranger was a Vietnam vet who was a "legend in Alaska rescue circles"; he flew a Pave Hawk helicopter whose rotors move at a constant speed of 258 RPM.  Every story here is dramatic and informative, but they interfere with each other, and the reader has to exert a lot of mental energy keeping them straight.

The book's subtitle is "Survival and Reckoning After a Climb Gone Wrong," and indeed its most emotional chapter is about the impact on the fallen climber and his fiancée. The most memorable parts, however, are about the modern systems of mountain rescue. There is one brief scene in which the author himself completes a tricky pitch on an Alaskan peak and receives a text from his girlfriend asking where to find the toner cartridges for their printer.