Imagine that you are on a backpacking trek in the mountains. In the morning, from your tent, you admire the surrounding peaks and are drawn to them. What would it take to climb them? Or perhaps you are about to join a party climbing Rainier, in pursuit of a longtime dream. What do you need to know? Mountaineering Handbook will tell you. The central premise of this book is that mountaineering as practiced by the great majority of climbers the great majority of the time involves third-class climbing (with hands and feet) and fourth-class climbing (with the use of a rope for safety) but no fifth-class routes. "Fifth-class" describes the most difficult and technical climbing, wherein the leader must be belayed and intermediate anchors must be used for protection. It's the kind of climbing done by rock and ice climbers on local crags. There it is tough, demanding, and dangerous, but when translated to high and remote mountain peaks it is many times more so. The degree of exposure and the consequences of small mistakes magnify geometrically. And when the object is to summit a mountain, fifth-class climbing is unnecessary.
The south col of Everest is a fourth-class route, albeit one requiring the commitment of a major expedition to undertake. That is why, for the greatest number of mountaineers, third- and fourth-class climbing is an end in itself. And it is why a book that covers fifth-class as well as third- and fourth-class climbing is like a book that covers both whitewater and sea kayaking. Mountaineering Handbook is the first instructional guide written for the great majority of aspiring mountaineers, those who fall (no pun intended) between beginner and advanced climber. Many are experienced backpackers who love the mountains and want to take on new challenges there. Others are "peak baggers" or adventure travelers, and still others are sport and gym climbers looking for a way into the mountains. Even many experienced mountaineers will want a book that helps them organize and update their skills repertoire; many use outdated methods simply because of the lack of popular sources for learning anything better.