Book summary
Samenvatting van Boven de sneeuwgrens
- 8 min. leestijd
- 8 key ideas
- Binnenkort te beluisteren
Nineteen attempts on the Aiguille du Dru, with rain, a rickety ladder and a deadpan wit, fill this Alpine memoir.
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Boven de sneeuwgrens in het kort
Samenvatting: 8 min leestijd
- Leestijd
- Ongeveer 5 h 5 min4 h 5 min fast, 6 h 5 min slow
- Lengte
- 73.100 woorden
- Bibliotheekniveau
- Uitdagend long sentences, a rich vocabulary
- Voor het eerst verschenen
- 1885by C. T. Dent
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). Hoelang het duurt om de klassiekers te lezen · Bijgewerkt
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Boven de sneeuwgrens in short
Above the Snow Line is a string of Alpine sketches told by a climber who laughs at himself and at everyone around him. The book moves from a ruined hut at Saas in 1870, through the Rothhorn, the Dru, the Bietschhorn, and the Aiguille du Midi, to small comic days on the Portienhorn and Mont Buet. You keep a picture of climbing in its early years.
What Boven de sneeuwgrens is about
What would it take to try one rock needle nineteen times? In Above the Snow Line, C. T. Dent answers with rain, a rickety ladder, a silent porter, and a guide named Alexander Burgener who never doubts. The scene that holds the book together is a September day in 1878, when a small party stands on the Aiguille du Dru above Chamouni and at last runs out of mountain to climb.
Dent was an English climber who finished these sketches at Cortina di Ampezzo in 1884, drawing on his Alpine seasons of the 1870s. Some chapters tell of new routes, others are comic portraits of hotel guests and moralists. You get the climbs, the guides, the failures, and the opinions Dent defends, all in a dry voice that teases himself.
Voor wie is het?. Readers who love mountain adventure told with a wink, armchair travellers drawn to the Alps of the 1870s, and anyone curious about guides and first ascents.
The 8 key ideas
Key idea 1 · free to read
Dent chooses the old style of climbing
Dent opens with a climb from 1870, written years later. He wants to see how an old expedition looks after time has softened it. He admits that he is taking an unconscionable time to begin.
He sets that age against the one that followed. In his day, climbers served a patient apprenticeship. He spent five or six seasons in the Alps, and in the first two he never set foot on a snow slope. Later came guideless climbing, winter ascents, and climbs in bad weather by the wrong routes.
The variation craze gets his sharpest joke. He compares it to a composer who torments a simple tune with thirty-two variations until the original is buried like a sixpence in a flour bag. A point reached by a slightly different line now counts as a separate mountain.
Under the humour the point is plain. Climbing is a craft learned only by constant practice, and nobody gets a royal road up a mountain.
The takeaway is that real skill in the mountains comes from patient apprenticeship, not from fashion or novelty.
- 2Begin gratis met lezen
A deserted inn and the Südlenzspitz
In early August 1870 Dent's party walks up the Saas valley under a heavy sun.
- 3Begin gratis met lezen
The Rothhorn and a falling slab
In September 1872 the party arrives in Zermatt.
- 4Begin gratis met lezen
Early failures on the Aiguille du Dru
By 1873 most great Alpine peaks have fallen, and the aiguilles of Mont Blanc remain.
- 5Begin gratis met lezen
A wet summer and the Bietschhorn
The summer of 1878 is among the worst on record.
- 6Begin gratis met lezen
A storm on the Aiguille du Midi
Dent calls the Aiguille du Midi a climb in which nothing goes by the book.
- 7Begin gratis met lezen
Burgener's belief and the nineteenth attempt
By 1878 the party has made many attempts on the Dru.
- 8Begin gratis met lezen
Sketches, ethics, and the future of climbing
After the climb, Dent turns to the code of mountaineering ethics.
Read all 8 key ideas now
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Vragen over Boven de sneeuwgrens
What is Above the Snow Line about?
It collects sketches of Alpine climbing from the 1870s, written by C. T. Dent. The main thread is the long campaign to climb the Aiguille du Dru, with other climbs, comic hotel scenes, and thoughts on the future of mountaineering.
Did C. T. Dent really climb the Aiguille du Dru?
Yes. Dent and his guides Alexander Burgener and Kaspar Maurer, with J. Walker Hartley, reached the summit in September 1878 on their nineteenth attempt. The book tells the story of that campaign in detail.
Is Above the Snow Line a true story?
The climbs and people are real, and Dent says he kept the mountain facts accurate. He adds comic exaggeration to the hotel scenes and includes one openly made-up fragment that parodies a boastful solo climb.
Is it easy to follow if I know nothing about climbing?
The chapters stand alone, the humour is lively, and Dent explains terms like bergschrund and couloir as he goes. Each sketch has its own small story, so readers can enter anywhere and enjoy it.
What is the main message of the book?
Climbing is a craft learned by long practice, and safety comes from knowing the rules and when to turn back. Dent also argues that mountaineering skills will serve exploration far beyond the Alps.
Verwijs naar deze uitgave
Dent, Clinton Thomas. Above the Snow Line. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/above-the-snow-line.
Dent, C. T. (2026). Above the snow line. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/above-the-snow-line (Original work published 1885)
Dent, Clinton Thomas. Above the Snow Line. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/above-the-snow-line.
@book{dent2026above,
author = {Dent, Clinton Thomas},
title = {Above the Snow Line},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/above-the-snow-line},
note = {First published 1885}
}
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