To Ride the Mountain Winds: A History of Aerial Mountaineering and Rescue

by Leslie Symons

To Ride the Mountain Winds, possibly the first history of aerial mountaineering to span the whole period from the 18th century to the present day, is written for everyone interested in the history of mountaineering and also those interested in the history of aviation and the limits to which pilots have pushed their machines and their skills. This should include not only climbers and flyers but also those airline passengers who, while sipping a gin and tonic in the luxury of a modern airliner, far above the shining snows, have paused to wonder what might happen if their jet-propelled magic carpet were forced suddenly to descend among them. Few will have pondered the connections between the histories of mountaineers and aviators but their interaction is almost as old as either.

345 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 17, 2013

About the author

Leslie Symons (b. 1926) is Professor of Geography at the Center of Russian and European Studies and at the Department of Geography at the University College of Swansea.

Reviews

[Fredrik · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting topic, but a story poorly told. Perhaps it has something to do with the author being more used to academic than narrative writing.
There were a lot of internal references within the book and holding the reader’s hand; I quickly tired of all the “as told in chapter four” and “in the coming chapter we will look at” or “to be further explained in chapter…”.
Several times I also had the feeling that someone was referred to without having been properly introduced - unless that was me just losing concentration and missing the intro. There were also glaring omissions of information, like “It was company policy to…”, without letting us know which company.
I also found the text disjointed, jumping in time, place and topic and some sections were almost like unfinished and disconnected notes.

This feels harsh and is still just one reader’s opinion, but I got really excited by the topic only to feel equally let down by the book.