Each time I picked up “Imaginary Peaks: The Riesenstein Hoax and Other Mountain Dreams” over the numerous weeks it took me to read the 24-chapter mammoth, I never quite knew what to expect. The author, Katie Ives, who also acts as editor-in-chief of Alpinist Magazine, wrote the sprawling nonfiction novel over nearly a decade, and its detailed storytelling of the numerous events and people related to the Riesenstein hoax reads like three loosely related histories of human exploration. Unfortunately, that complexity means the reader is often buried in a variety of thematic points, character arcs and expeditions. Despite the ungainly nature of the text, Ives does succeed at utilizing her beautifully detailed prose to inspire reflection on the joy gained from every walk with nature, particularly in Washington State.
“Imaginary Peaks” uses the infamous Riesenstein hoax as the basis for a deep dive into climbing culture. In 1962, the hoax was perpetrated by climbers Harvey Manning, Austin Post and Edward LaChappelle, who sent Summit Magazine a fictitious account of attempting to summit three spire peaks: what they called the Riesenstein Peaks of British Columbia. In fact, they were climbing the Kichatna Spires of Alaska. The prank, meant to poke fun at the peak-obsessed climbing community, went unnoticed by Summit’s editors and took years for the climbing community to uncover. “Imaginary Peaks” quickly introduces the hoax and often returns to it in each of its three separate sections that, while compartmentalized, rely on each other to enforce Ives’ numerous thematic points.
The first section sets the stage for how the Riesenstein hoax worked, by detailing the human desire for expansion and our battle against the unknown. Here, Ives also takes care to recognize the bold hypocrisy of Western “explorers,” who often laid claim to lands as if the Indigenous people living there were invisible. The section also provides detailed histories of cartography, topographical mapping and mountaineering, raising questions about labeling the unknown and evaluating truthfulness.
If this seems like a lot to cover, your instincts aren’t far off. The start of “Imaginary Peaks” approaches textbook levels of historical detail, leaving the reader pining for a more story-like structure.
The second part does just that, leaning more heavily on narrative, as the reader is introduced to not only the hoax perpetrators, but also a host of characters who at one point or another were touched by the conspiracy. Ives carefully details the lives of the Seattle-based perpetrators of the hoax, which alone could fill a single book. However, she doesn’t limit the narrative to that narrow group: instead, over the section’s 13 chapters, Ives introduces at least 10 characters, their backstories and their multiple excursions into the wild.
While occasionally bordering on pedantic in terms of detail, section two allows the reader to take in Ives’ writing abilities as she beautifully details high alpine peaks and faraway lands. Undeniably well researched and stunningly detailed, the second part mainly suffers from a lack of cohesion, as Ives jumps between numerous characters with varied levels of importance to the hoax, making it difficult to bond with any one character or expedition.
In the final section, Ives attempts to unite the historical analysis of the first and the multiple narratives of the second to arrive at what feels like a grab-bag of takeaways. Section three largely focuses on philosophical explorations of truth, mountains and life. She adds additional context to the lives of those closest to the hoax, their relationship with the Pacific Northwest and what she gathered from conversations with the culprits as the true intentions of their deception. The section forces the reader to confront humanity’s crisis of conservation and the dwindling of unknown places, but once again the sheer quantity of content has the effect of dulling the takeaways.
In each section, “Imaginary Peaks” is hindered by the sheer scope of the topics it aims to cover. While I sympathize with the herculean task Ives took on, I can’t help but wonder if the stories here would work better in another format, such as multiple long-form magazine articles.
While “Imaginary Places” doesn’t consistently deliver ultra-compelling narratives or overall cohesion, Ives does demonstrate a virtuosic ability to describe nature; each time I put down the book, I felt compelled to explore nature near and far, dreaming of the views from hikes past and future. If that’s a compelling enough reason for you to give it a shot, find “Imaginary Peaks” on shelves now.
Chris Halter is a Seattle-based writer. Find him on Medium, @Chris-Halter.
Read more of the July 20-26, 2022 issue.