Author: Craig Storti
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1529331560
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 339
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Book Description
'The definitive back story of Mount Everest' Stewart Weaver, co-author of Fallen Giants 'Craig Storti has given us the Everest book that we've needed all along' Scott Ellsworth, author of The World Beneath Their Feet The seventy-one-year quest to find the world's highest mountain. The Hunt for Mount Everest is the seldom-told story of how the last remaining major prize in the history of exploration was identified, named and at last found. This is Everest, the prequel: a high-drama tale, filled with larger-than-life characters and quiet heroes, traverses the Alps, the Himalayas, Nepal and Tibet, the British Empire, the Anglo-Russian rivalry known as The Great Game, the disastrous First Afghan War, and the phenomenal Survey of India. Encountering spies, war, political intrigues, and hundreds of mules, camels, bullocks, yaks, and two zebrules, this account uncovers the fascinating saga leading up to the fateful day in late June of 1921, when two English climbers, George Mallory and Guy Bullock, became the first westerners - and almost certainly the first human beings - to set foot on Mount Everest.
Author: Jon Krakauer
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0679462716
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 318
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Book Description
#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The epic account of the storm on the summit of Mt. Everest that claimed five lives and left countless more—including Krakauer's—in guilt-ridden disarray. "A harrowing tale of the perils of high-altitude climbing, a story of bad luck and worse judgment and of heartbreaking heroism." —PEOPLE A bank of clouds was assembling on the not-so-distant horizon, but journalist-mountaineer Jon Krakauer, standing on the summit of Mt. Everest, saw nothing that "suggested that a murderous storm was bearing down." He was wrong. By writing Into Thin Air, Krakauer may have hoped to exorcise some of his own demons and lay to rest some of the painful questions that still surround the event. He takes great pains to provide a balanced picture of the people and events he witnessed and gives due credit to the tireless and dedicated Sherpas. He also avoids blasting easy targets such as Sandy Pittman, the wealthy socialite who brought an espresso maker along on the expedition. Krakauer's highly personal inquiry into the catastrophe provides a great deal of insight into what went wrong. But for Krakauer himself, further interviews and investigations only lead him to the conclusion that his perceived failures were directly responsible for a fellow climber's death. Clearly, Krakauer remains haunted by the disaster, and although he relates a number of incidents in which he acted selflessly and even heroically, he seems unable to view those instances objectively. In the end, despite his evenhanded and even generous assessment of others' actions, he reserves a full measure of vitriol for himself. This updated trade paperback edition of Into Thin Air includes an extensive new postscript that sheds fascinating light on the acrimonious debate that flared between Krakauer and Everest guide Anatoli Boukreev in the wake of the tragedy. "I have no doubt that Boukreev's intentions were good on summit day," writes Krakauer in the postscript, dated August 1999. "What disturbs me, though, was Boukreev's refusal to acknowledge the possibility that he made even a single poor decision. Never did he indicate that perhaps it wasn't the best choice to climb without gas or go down ahead of his clients." As usual, Krakauer supports his points with dogged research and a good dose of humility. But rather than continue the heated discourse that has raged since Into Thin Air's denouncement of guide Boukreev, Krakauer's tone is conciliatory; he points most of his criticism at G. Weston De Walt, who coauthored The Climb, Boukreev's version of events. And in a touching conclusion, Krakauer recounts his last conversation with the late Boukreev, in which the two weathered climbers agreed to disagree about certain points. Krakauer had great hopes to patch things up with Boukreev, but the Russian later died in an avalanche on another Himalayan peak, Annapurna I. In 1999, Krakauer received an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters--a prestigious prize intended "to honor writers of exceptional accomplishment." According to the Academy's citation, "Krakauer combines the tenacity and courage of the finest tradition of investigative journalism with the stylish subtlety and profound insight of the born writer. His account of an ascent of Mount Everest has led to a general reevaluation of climbing and of the commercialization of what was once a romantic, solitary sport; while his account of the life and death of Christopher McCandless, who died of starvation after challenging the Alaskan wilderness, delves even more deeply and disturbingly into the fascination of nature and the devastating effects of its lure on a young and curious mind."
Author: Nico Medina
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0698412168
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 114
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Book Description
As the recent deaths of sixteen Sherpas underscore, climbing Mount Everest remains a daunting challenge. Located in the Himalayas, Everest is the highest mountain in the world at a whopping 29,028 feet. In this compelling narrative, Nico Medina guides readers through the mountain’s ancient beginnings, first human settlers, historic climbs, and the modern commercialization of mountain-climbing. With stories of expeditions gone wrong and miraculously successful summit climbs, this is a thrilling addition to the Where Is? series!
Author: Steve Jenkins
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0547349564
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 36
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Book Description
In this stunning picture book, Steve Jenkins takes us to Mount Everest - exploring its history, geography, climate, and culture. This unique book takes readers on the ultimate adventure of climbing the great mountain. Travel along and learn what to pack for such a trek and the hardships one may suffer on the way to the top. Avalanches, frostbite, frigid temperatures, wind, and limited oxygen are just a few of the dangers that make scaling this peak one of the most extreme physical challenges one can experience. To stand on the top of Mount Everest is to stand on top of the world. With informative text and exquisitely detailed cut paper illustrations, Steve Jenkins brings this extreme journey alive for young adventurers.
Author: Jennifer Hull
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
ISBN: 0826361943
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 256
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Book Description
Shook tells the story of resilience, nerve, and survival on the deadliest day on Everest.
Author: Ed Viesturs
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 145169475X
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 352
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Book Description
In national bestseller The Mountain, world-renowned climber and bestselling author Ed Viesturs and cowriter David Roberts paint a vivid portrait of obsession, dedication, and human achievement in a true love letter to the world’s highest peak. In The Mountain, veteran world-class climber and bestselling author Ed Viesturs—the only American to have climbed all fourteen of the world’s 8,000-meter peaks—trains his sights on Mount Everest in richly detailed accounts of expeditions that are by turns personal, harrowing, deadly, and inspiring. The highest mountain on earth, Everest remains the ultimate goal for serious high-altitude climbers. Viesturs has gone on eleven expeditions to Everest, spending more than two years of his life on the mountain and reaching the summit seven times. No climber today is better poised to survey Everest’s various ascents—both personal and historic. Viesturs sheds light on the fate of Mallory and Irvine, whose 1924 disappearance just 800 feet from the summit remains one of mountaineering’s greatest mysteries, as well as the multiply tragic last days of Rob Hall and Scott Fischer in 1996, the stuff of which Into Thin Air was made. Informed by the experience of one who has truly been there, The Mountain affords a rare glimpse into that place on earth where Heraclitus’s maxim—“Character is destiny”—is proved time and again.
Author: Mark Synnott
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 152474557X
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 465
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Book Description
***NPR Books We Love selection*** “If you’re only going to read one Everest book this decade, make it The Third Pole. . . . A riveting adventure.”—Outside Shivering, exhausted, gasping for oxygen, beyond doubt . . . A hundred-year mystery lured veteran climber Mark Synnott into an unlikely expedition up Mount Everest during the spring 2019 season that came to be known as “the Year Everest Broke.” What he found was a gripping human story of impassioned characters from around the globe and a mountain that will consume your soul—and your life—if you let it. The mystery? On June 8, 1924, George Mallory and Sandy Irvine set out to stand on the roof of the world, where no one had stood before. They were last seen eight hundred feet shy of Everest’s summit still “going strong” for the top. Could they have succeeded decades before Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay? Irvine is believed to have carried a Kodak camera with him to record their attempt, but it, along with his body, had never been found. Did the frozen film in that camera have a photograph of Mallory and Irvine on the summit before they disappeared into the clouds, never to be seen again? Kodak says the film might still be viable. . . . Mark Synnott made his own ascent up the infamous North Face along with his friend Renan Ozturk, a filmmaker using drones higher than any had previously flown. Readers witness first-hand how Synnott’s quest led him from oxygen-deprivation training to archives and museums in England, to Kathmandu, the Tibetan high plateau, and up the North Face into a massive storm. The infamous traffic jams of climbers at the very summit immediately resulted in tragic deaths. Sherpas revolted. Chinese officials turned on Synnott’s team. An Indian woman miraculously crawled her way to frostbitten survival. Synnott himself went off the safety rope—one slip and no one would have been able to save him—committed to solving the mystery. Eleven climbers died on Everest that season, all of them mesmerized by an irresistible magic. The Third Pole is a rapidly accelerating ride to the limitless joy and horror of human obsession.
Author: Sherry B. Ortner
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691211779
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 396
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Book Description
The Sherpas were dead, two more victims of an attempt to scale Mt. Everest. Members of a French climbing expedition, sensitive perhaps about leaving the bodies where they could not be recovered, rolled them off a steep mountain face. One body, however, crashed to a stop near Sherpas on a separate expedition far below. They stared at the frozen corpse, stunned. They said nothing, but an American climber observing the scene interpreted their thoughts: Nobody would throw the body of a white climber off Mt. Everest. For more than a century, climbers from around the world have journ-eyed to test themselves on Everest's treacherous slopes, enlisting the expert aid of the Sherpas who live in the area. Drawing on years of field research in the Himalayas, renowned anthropologist Sherry Ortner presents a compelling account of the evolving relationship between the mountaineers and the Sherpas, a relationship of mutual dependence and cultural conflict played out in an environment of mortal risk. Ortner explores this relationship partly through gripping accounts of expeditions--often in the climbers' own words--ranging from nineteenth-century forays by the British through the historic ascent of Hillary and Tenzing to the disasters described in Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air. She reveals the climbers, or "sahibs," to use the Sherpas' phrase, as countercultural romantics, seeking to transcend the vulgarity and materialism of modernity through the rigor and beauty of mountaineering. She shows how climbers' behavior toward the Sherpas has ranged from kindness to cruelty, from cultural sensitivity to derision. Ortner traces the political and economic factors that led the Sherpas to join expeditions and examines the impact of climbing on their traditional culture, religion, and identity. She examines Sherpas' attitude toward death, the implications of the shared masculinity of Sherpas and sahibs, and the relationship between Sherpas and the increasing number of women climbers. Ortner also tackles debates about whether the Sherpas have been "spoiled" by mountaineering and whether climbing itself has been spoiled by commercialism.
Author: James M. Tabor
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0812979494
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 322
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Book Description
“Heart-stopping and relentlessly gripping. Tabor takes us on an odyssey into unfathomable worlds beneath us, and into the hearts of rare explorers who will do anything to get there first.”—Robert Kurson, author of ShadowDivers In 2004, two great scientist-explorers attempted to find the bottom of the world. American Bill Stone took on the vast, deadly Cheve Cave in southern Mexico. Ukrainian Alexander Klimchouk targeted Krubera, a freezing nightmare of a supercave in the war-torn former Soviet republic of Georgia. Both men spent months almost two vertical miles deep, contending with thousand-foot drops, raging whitewater rivers, monstrous waterfalls, mile-long belly crawls, and the psychological horrors produced by weeks in absolute darkness, beyond all hope of rescue. Based on his unprecedented access to logs and journals as well as hours of personal interviews, James Tabor has crafted a thrilling exploration of man’s timeless urge to discover—and of two extraordinary men whose pursuit of greatness led them to the heights of triumph and the depths of tragedy. Blind Descent is an unforgettable addition to the classic literature of true-life adventure, and a testament to human survival and endurance. “Holds the reader to his seat, containing dangers aplenty with deadly falls, killer microbes, sudden burial, asphyxiation, claustrophobia, anxiety, and hallucinations far underneath the ground in a lightless world. Using a pulse-pounding narrative, this is tense real-life adventure pitting two master cavers mirroring the cold war with very uncommonly high stakes.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) “A fascinating and informative introduction to the sport of cave diving, as well as a dramatic portrayal of a significant man-vs.-nature conflict. . . . What counts is Tabor’s knack for maximizing dramatic potential, while also managing to be informative and attentive to the major personalities associated with the most important cave explorations of the last two decades.”—Kirkus Reviews Includes a 16-pg black and white insert
Author: Sandra K. Athans
Publisher: Millbrook Press
ISBN: 1467701262
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 68
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Book Description
The journey up Mount Everest is never easy. Climbers risk their lives as they struggle around jagged towers of ice, over snow-covered boulders, and across gaping crevasses. Pete Athans knows these dangers well. He has climbed Mount Everest fourteen times and reached the summit seven times. What is it like to climb the highest mountain on Earth? In this book, you'll follow Pete to the top—and learn about his adventures along the way.
