The Pic d'Ossau Monograph Impressions and Stories book

Le Pic d'Ossau Monograph Impressions and Stories mountain book

Author: Robert Ollivier

Editions du CAIRN 2010. New book, paperback, 240 pages, richly illustrated.

Description: Robert Ollivier has confronted many mountains. Comparing the simplicity of the Dolomites to the complexity of the Ossau and its folds, he invokes the quality of intelligence necessary here for the climber, the character of a work of art of his action. "Our great peak only reveals itself in all its beauty to the valiant who confront it on all its faces". An opener of new routes, a pioneer of the Unknown Faces, the author, who discovered the Ossau in August 1930, remains nonetheless sensitive to the landscape, to the spectacle of the seasons of the Ossau, of dawns and evenings and to the feeling of plenitude that accompanies the returns to the refuge. This is why this book, initially published in 1948, fulfills the goal it sets itself, a song to the glory of the mountain, not just to the glory of high-school climbing. The book is constructed in two parts, the story of the conquest of the Pic is followed by some stories of "firsts". It fills a gap, the Ossau, "our Pyrenean Matterhorn" deserved its book. Robert Ollivier wrote it. And, through his humanity, his love, his poetic sense, it has become a classic of the Pyrenees. Out of print for decades, it seemed essential to us to reissue this book, essential to any Pyrenean library.