The articles are composed of three types: Adventures (Roberts' own climbs and outings), Profiles (other adventurers), and Reflections (meditative essays about the meaning of the whole business). Roberts ranges the globe (Africa, Alaska, New Guinea) and introduces unique personalities (Reinhold Messner, John Roskelly, Don Sheldon). He also recounts how his own love of writing and the useless pastime of climbing combined to produce the bread and butter of his career today.Popular with audiences far beyond active mountaineers, Roberts sets himself this challenge: "For me, the abiding puzzle of adventure writing lies in keeping, on the one hand, a sense of proportion about the absurdity of most of our antics in the outdoors, while staying alert, on the other, to the majesty of spirit which at their best those antics demonstrate."RUNNING TIME ⇒ 10hrs. and 39mins.©1986 David Roberts (P)2020 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

    The Everest Years shares the story of his relationship with the highest and most sought-after peak on the planet, Everest, and his ultimate fulfilment upon finally summiting in 1985 at age fifty.Bonington chronicles four expeditions to the Himalaya and Everest, including the 1975 South-West Face expedition on which he was leader and on which Doug Scott and Dougal Haston became the first Britons to summit the mountain. Bonington also recounts expeditions to K2 and The Ogre (Baintha Brakk) in the Karakoram, and Kongur, in China, describing passionately each attempt: the logistics, glory, and tragedy, seeking to explain his perpetual fascination with the highest points on earth, despite repeatedly enduring the trauma of losing friends, and often placing huge responsibility upon anxious loved ones left at home.The Everest Years reveals Bonington's love and appreciation for his ever-supportive wife Wendy, the loyal Sherpas, the companions sharing his mountain memories including Doug Scott, Dougal Haston, Peter Boardman, Joe Tasker and Mo Anthoine, and of course the glorious peaks of the Himalaya and Karakoram mountain ranges. Following I Chose to Climb and The Next Horizon, this final instalment of Bonington's autobiography will take you through a huge spectrum of brutally honest emotions and majestic landscapes.