EDITING THE AMERICAN ALPINE JOURNAL

H. ADAMS CARTER

"THE AMERICAN ALPINE JOURNAL was born 27 * years after the founding of the American Alpine Club in 1902. The Club had published three monographs called Alpina Americana: The High Sierra of California, 1907, The Canadian Rocky Mountains, 1911 and Mountain Exploration in Alaska, 1914. From 1905 until 1925, the Appalachian Mountain Club published for the Club, mountaineering notes and records of Club meetings in Appalachia under the heading of "Alpina". The Harvard Mountaineering Club Journal carried this on from 1926 to 1928.

In 1929, the first issue of the American Alpine Journal appeared. The emphasis was heavily weighted towards the Canadian mountains, although there was one article on the Fairweather range in Alaska and a philosophical article on mountaineering. Number 2 showed an enormous increase in the number of regions covered: Ecuador, Wyoming, Colorado, Montana, California, Mexico, the Caucasus, the Alps, as well as Canada. In this issue, 'Various Notes' began; this is the section which is now entitled 'Climbs and Expeditions' and takes up at least half of the present volumes. The editors were Allen Carpe, 1929; Howard Palmer 1930-1933; J. Monroe Thorington, 1934-1946; Robert H. Bates and David A. Robertson, 1947-1953; William S. Child, 1952-1955; Richard C. Houston, 1956; Francis P. Farquhar, 1956-1958; and H. Adams Carter, 1959 to the present.

It is interesting to note that the first AAJ cost $1.50. The price varied from $1.00 to $2.00 until 1946, when the price began to rise meteorically.

My own involvement began as an Assistant Editor in 1954. I agreed to do the 'Climbs and Expeditions.' At that time, there were possibly each year, a half dozen expeditions to the great ranges. I could fit my work into one long weekend, which did not disturb my teaching schedule. I agreed to take on the editorship in 1959 until my children were old enough to accompany my wife and me on expeditions. Somehow, teaching, editing and expeditions all managed to get sandwiched in and I continued on as editor.

In my first years (and of course later on too), I was ably helped by those who were older and wiser than I. I got excellent advice from the preceding editor, Francis Farquhar, and from such notables as Marcel Kurz and G.O. Dyhrenfurth. Today I lean heavily on such authorities as Evelio Echevarria, Elizabeth Hawley and Jozef Nyka, to mention only three. And I must not omit mentioning the help of my editorial staff and my wife Ann. Without other mountain chroniclers and expedition leaders, we could not hope to try to publish most of what has gone on in the mountaineering world each year. I do have to prod, and often write several letters, to those who hesitate to send me their reports. It is exasperating when letters go unanswered.

Francis Farquhar handed me over the reins with one important bit of advice: don't ever forget that you are the editor. 1 may have infuriated some authors when the editorial blue pencil struck hard. Previous editor Thorington would become irate if I changed a comma of his work, even when he was clearly wrong. Not a few authors, after seeing their writing in print, have written me to tell me how well their efforts read in the AAJ, not suspecting that what they had written was changed and edited. When I make significant changes, I do send the new typescript to the author for his approval. I shall never forget one case when an author submitted a hideously badly written article. A visiting mountaineering friend and I spent every evening for a week, working it over. Hardly an original sentence remained. I thought I would incur the never-ending wrath of the author when I sent him the new version. His reply, turned out to be far from sarcastic. It was, 'How did you manage to say just what I wanted to but could not?' Strangely enough, he was grateful to me until his death a few years afterward in a tragic climbing accident.

Over the years, I have managed to acquire knowledge of what has gone on in the mountains, having gradually picked up information as it was becoming part of climbing history. I have sometimes been able to note when a 'first' ascent was being done for the second time. My climbing in most of the great ranges of the world, with the exception of New Zealand, the Caucasus, the Antarctic and Greenland, has been an enormous help. I have had the privilege of getting to know a large number of the prominent climbers from all over the world. My facility with foreign languages helps. Writing to climbers in English, German, French and Spanish assists in getting replies. I even write letters in Italian, which I have never studied, and get answers to the questions I have asked. I have translated articles from Catalan into English. Friends who send me letters to translate in such languages as Slovene believe I can handle all languages. In fact, I never got beyond the fifth lesson in the Slovene grammar book. Knowledge of languages does help in combing through foreign periodicals, something I dp with care to see who has done what and where. Knowing that, I can go after specific climbers to get a report.

I have been asked what the future of the American Alpine Journal will be. I cannot answer that. The future is always cloudy. All I know is that all things come to an end. It has taken me a long time to become familiar with the whole subject of mountaineering history. I have been lucky to have had some of the qualities needed for the job. Whom have I been training to carry on ? Nobody. All I know is that when I can no longer do the editing, the American Alpine Journal will be different. Not worse, just different.

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A personal note on editing the American Alpine Journal by the author. He has been associated with the editing of the AAJ for 40 years, having been its editor for the last 35 years continuously.

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