Mountaineering: The freedom of the hills

My friend Kenneth told me I should have this book.

Kenneth is one of my usual climbing partners. He is also one of those people who seems to have a different relationship with the outside. He has spent a big part of his life at sea, sailing, reading the sky, paying attention to wind, pressure, clouds, stars. The kind of person who doesn’t need to make nature sound mystical because he has actually spent enough time in it.

So when he tells me a book is worth having, I listen.

Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills is not a romantic book about mountains. It is not a photo book. It is not trying to make the outdoors look cool. It is a manual. A proper one. Big, dense, practical, slightly intimidating at first, but also strangely comforting.

It has that feeling of an object that has been around for a long time because it is actually useful.

The first edition came out in 1960. This is the 10th. That already says a lot. Some books become classics because people keep talking about them. Others become classics because people keep needing them. This one feels like the second kind.

It covers almost everything: clothing, equipment, camping, food, water, navigation, communication, climbing basics, belaying, rappelling, sport climbing, trad climbing, aid climbing, snow, ice, glaciers, avalanches, rescue, weather, geology. Basically, all the things you realise you should know a bit better every time you go to the mountains.

And that is what I like about it.

It does not make the mountain feel like a lifestyle. It makes it feel like a place where you should pay attention.

I am not an expert mountaineer. I climb, I ski, I hike, I spend time outside, but there are many areas where I am still very much learning. Maybe that is why I like this book so much. It is useful for people who already know a lot, but also for amateurs like me. It does not speak down to you. It just gives you the information and lets you understand how much there is to learn.

That can be humbling, in a good way.

The book is printed in black and white, which I really like. No glossy drama. No fake epic. Just text, diagrams and hundreds of illustrations explaining things clearly: knots, anchors, movement, equipment, snow, rescue, weather, all of it. The drawings are beautiful because they are useful. They don’t try to be decorative. They just show you what you need to understand.

There is something nice about owning a book like this now. We are used to searching everything quickly: a knot, a weather question, what to bring, how to do something, what not to do. And that is useful, of course. But a book works differently. It slows things down. You open a chapter and end up reading about something you were not looking for.

You realise that a lot of mountain knowledge is connected. Clothing is connected to weather. Weather to decision-making. Decision-making to safety. Safety to experience. Experience to humility.

It is not about knowing everything. It is about knowing that everything matters a little.

The design of the book is very manual-like, in the best possible way. Lots of text, lists, technical illustrations, pages that feel almost school-like. Not fancy. Not over-designed. It has the confidence of something that does not need to seduce you too much. It just needs to be clear.

I like that.

At Amunt we often talk about outdoor culture from a clothing, image or design point of view. But there is another side of it that is less visible and probably more important: knowledge. Knowing how to move, how to prepare, how to read a situation, how not to be stupid outside. This book belongs to that world.

It is not a book you buy to finish in one weekend. It is a book you keep around. You read a chapter, leave it, come back before a trip, check something, forget something, learn it again. It feels more like a tool than a book.

A very big tool.

Kenneth was right. Everyone who spends time in the mountains should probably have a copy of The Freedom of the Hills. Not because it will make you an expert, but because it reminds you that the mountain deserves more than enthusiasm.

It deserves attention.

And maybe a bit of homework.

Martí Canillas

Creative Director and Co-founder of Amunt