Showing titles in Climbing & Mountaineering

In 2015, climber and documentary maker Joe French was filming in the Himalaya when tragedy struck and he found himself caught in an earthquake that killed nearly 9,000 people. Miraculously, he survived—but this wasn't the first accident from which he was lucky enough to escape. On a previous expedition to the Himalayas, Joe's team of Sherpas had been wiped out by an avalanche. Back in Scotland, his wife Julie was fighting her own battle against cancer and, on his return, Joe found himself at home caring for their two young girls.

Peaks and Lamas is one of the classic early 20th-century accounts of travelling in the Himalayas on the borders of Tibet. It describes two journeys in the 1930s, one physically active and one more of spiritual investigation. It starts as the title suggests, as a mountaineering adventure, when a group of English climbers set out to climb unconquered peaks in the Himalayas. The audiobook ends with a warning of the deleterious effect of Western culture on traditional art and values and an idealistic polemic on education.

Using an infamous deception about a fake mountain range in British Columbia as her jumping-off point, Katie Ives explores the lure of blank spaces on the map and the value of the imagination. In Imaginary Peaks she details the cartographical mystery of the Riesenstein Hoax within the larger context of climbing history and the seemingly endless quest for newly discovered peaks and claims of first ascents. Imaginary Peaks is an evocative, thought-provoking tale, immersed in the literature of exploration, study of maps, and basic human desire.

The international bestseller Between a Rock and a Hard Place is now a major motion picture starring James Franco. Hiking into the remote Utah canyonlands, Aron Ralston felt perfectly at home in the beauty of the natural world. Then, at 2:41 P.M., eight miles from his truck, in a deep and narrow...

On the night of April 9, 1997, Warren Macdonald, a fit and experienced bushwalker, set out to climb Mount Bowen on Hinchinbrook Island, an unspoiled tropical paradise off the Australian coast. These would be his last steps as a fully intact human being: a freak rock fall pinned him for two days alone under a one-ton boulder, resulting in a double leg amputation. A Test of Will is a story both tragic and inspiring, conveying the horror of what happened and the extraordinary spirit that helped Macdonald survive a seemingly impossible ordeal.

Welchen Reiz bieten Herausforderungen? Was bedeutet es, Grenzen zu überwinden? In seinem Vortrag "Passion for Limits" erklärt Reinhold Messner den inneren Antrieb des Menschen anhand von einigen ausgewählten Extremerfahrungen. Beispiele wie seine Bezwingung des Mount Everest ohne Sauerstoffmaske oder der Alleinbesteigung des Nanga Parbat dienen zu Erläuterung seiner Motivation.

Hangdog Days vividly chronicles the era when rock climbing exploded in popularity, attracting a new generation of talented climbers eager to reach new heights via harder routes and faster ascents. This contentious, often entertaining period gave rise to sport climbing, climbing gyms, and competitive climbing-indelibly transforming the sport. Jeff Smoot was one of those brash young climbers, and here he traces the development of traditional climbing "rules," enforced first through peer pressure, then later through intimidation and sabotage.

Mark Twight is a BANFF award-winner, an extreme climber, an extreme writer, and an extreme personality. No matter what he's doing, Mark Twight takes a definite, and often controversial , stand. Anyone who knows climbing knows Twight's name, and anyone who knows Twight's name will want to listen to this audiobook. Each story is told in Twight's taut, in-your-face style. Brand-new epilogues bring each piece full circle, providing updated information and fresh, hindsight perspectives.

“If wilderness is outlawed, only outlaws can save wilderness.” Edward Abbey In a collection of gripping stories of adventure, Doug Peacock, loner, iconoclast, environmentalist, and contemporary of Edward Abbey, reflects on a life lived in the wild, asking the question many ask in their...

Dave Hahn, a local of Taos, New Mexico, is a legendary figure in mountaineering. Elite members of the climbing community have likened him to the Michael Jordan, Cal Ripkin, or Michael Phelps of the climbing world. The 2015 expedition he would lead came just one short year after the notorious Khumbu Icefall avalanche claimed the lives of 16 Sherpas. Dave and his team spent weeks honing the techniques that would help keep them alive through the Icefall and the Death Zone. None of this could have prepared them for the earthquake that shook Everest and all of their lives on April 25, 2015.

Steph Davis takes risks, trusts her impulses, makes decisions based on what feels right and never looks back. Soon after she was introduced to rock climbing, she abandoned the respectability of university life and a potential career as a concert pianist to become a "dirtbag climber," living out of her grandmother's hand-me-down Oldsmobile sedan with Fletcher, her loyal Blue heeler mix. Today, Davis is one of the most accomplished female climbers in the world, having made first ascents in Pakistan, Patagonia, Baffin Island, and Kyrgyzstan. \

On a mountain somewhere above treeline, in some of the coldest and worst winter conditions imaginable, two men lie unconscious in the snow as explosive winds batter the nearby summits. In The Last Traverse: Tragedy and Resilience in the Winter Whites, Ty Gagne masterfully lays out the events that led up to an epic and legendary rescue attempt in severe and dangerous winter conditions in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. More than a cautionary tale, it is a tribute to all the volunteers and professionals who willingly put themselves in harm's way to save lives. 

When Vanessa O'Brien was made redundant in 2008 as part of the recession, she moved to Hong Kong with her husband for his career and resigned herself to being 'just the wife'. There she was, aged 46, bored, uninspired, unemployed. Was this going to be how she was going to live the rest of her life? One night in the infamous Kee Club, over shots of tequila, a friend suggested O'Brien climb Everest and that was the start of an epic journey she never looked back from as she climbed Everest, K2 and many other mountains. This is her inspirational story.

Structured Chaos is Victor Saunders’ follow-up to Elusive Summits (winner of the Boardman Tasker Prize in 1990), No Place to Fall and Himalaya: The Tribulations of Vic & Mick. He reflects on his early childhood in Malaya and his first experiences of climbing as a student, and describes his progression from scaling canal-side walls in Camden to expeditions in the Himalaya and Karakoram.

Schon im französischen Exil, besuchte der Wahl-Pariser Tucholsky die Pyrenäen. Natürlich konnte daraus nicht ein reiner Reisebericht entstehen; Politik, Religion, der Mensch, die Liebe, kurz: einfach alles musste mit hinein. Und das ist es denn auch: Ein Hörbuch über die Pyrenäen - und alles andere.

On February 15, 2015, Kate Matrosova, an avid mountaineer, set off before sunrise for a traverse of the Northern Presidential Range in New Hampshire's White Mountains. Late the following day, rescuers carried her frozen body out of the mountains amid some of the worst weather ever recorded on these deceptively rugged slopes. At thirty-two, Matrosova was healthy and had already summited much larger mountains. What went wrong? Where You'll Find Me offers possible answers to that question.

A stunningly illustrated portrait of life and death in a hostile, high-altitude environment where no human can survive for long, Everest invites you to join Breashears, his climbers, and his crew as they make photographic history. Author Broughton Coburn traces each step of the team's progress toward a rendezvous with history - and suddenly you're on the scene of a disaster that riveted the world's attention.

David Roberts, "veteran mountain climber and chronicler of adventures" (Washington Post), has spent his career documenting voyages to the most extreme landscapes on earth. In Limits of the Known, he reflects on humanity's - and his own - relationship to extreme risk. Part memoir and part history, this book tries to make sense of why so many have committed their lives to the desperate pursuit of adventure.

Acclaimed writer David Smart illuminates the fascinating life of Royal Robbins—in all its soulful ambition, rivalry, and romance. Royal Robbins chronicles his early years growing up as a latchkey kid in Southern California, the push and pull between being an aspiring banker or one of the original Camp 4 dirtbags, and his later decades as a father, husband, kayaker, and the trailblazing founder of the outdoor apparel company that bears his name.

Frenchman Lionel Terray is one of mountaineering history's greatest alpinists, and his autobiography, Conquistadors of the Useless, stands among the "100 Greatest Adventure Books of All Time", according to National Geographic Adventure magazine. Following World War II, when France desperately needed successes to heal its wounds, Terray emerged as a national hero, conquering summits atop the planet's highest mountains.