Book of the week: Minus 148°

Denali had been climbed many times by 1967, but never in winter. Minus 148° is Art Davidson's account of the first winter ascent, made on 28 February 1967 by Davidson, Ray Genet and Dave Johnston. It is also the story of the storm that then held the team down high on the mountain for most of a week.

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A team that nearly came apart

Eight climbers set out in January under the leadership of Gregg Blomberg. On 31 January the French climber Jacques Batkin, whom his teammates called the strongest of the party, fell unroped into a crevasse and died. The others decided to go on.

The three who reached the top got there at about seven in the evening, with the thermometer at minus 62°F (minus 52°C)minus 62°F and the wind at 35 to 40 miles an hour. They buried Batkin's hat in the summit snow. On the way down a six-day blizzard trapped the summit party at Denali Pass and the rest of the team at camps lower down, all of them above 4,270 metres (14,000 feet). The wind chill that week was later calculated at minus 148°F, about minus 100°Cminus 148°F, which gave the book its title.

Davidson does not tidy up the arguments. Diary extracts from four of his teammates, George Wichman, John Edwards, Dave Johnston and Greg Blomberg, let them disagree with him in print. That honesty is a large part of why the book has lasted.

First published in 1969. The edition on the card has 242 pages, ISBN 9780898866872.

Why Denali climbers still read it

The 1967 team climbed the West Buttress, the route most climbers use today, so the camps in the book are the camps on a modern expedition. It is the clearest picture there is of what Denali's weather can do in a bad week. It is also good preparation for anyone reading the West Buttress chapter with a summer trip in mind.

Ray Genet

Genet was born in Switzerland in 1931 and had no previous mountaineering experience when he joined the expedition. He went on to become the first guide on Denali. He died in 1979 on the way down from the summit of Everest, after a night in the open at about 8,500 metres. The Denali history chapter of our guide places the 1967 climb among the mountain's other firsts.