More neurotic than it is sane. More corrupt than it is law-abiding. And more prone to hurricanes than it should be.This book is a celebration of life, love and adventure--an enchanting account of a couple who weren't afraid to jump off the hamster wheel and have a go at a dream.

    but second to no peak in terms of danger. From tragic deaths to unbelievable stories of heroism and survival, No Way Down is an amazing feat of storytelling and adventure writing, and, in the words of explorer and author Sir Ranulph Fiennes, “the closest you can come to being on the summit of K2 on that fateful day.”

    Everest in 1953 and a biography of her father, Dr Griffith Pugh, whose role was absolutely pivotal, yet mostly untold. As the expedition’s physiological consultant, Pugh designed almost every aspect of the survival strategy for the expedition, the acclimatization program, the oxygen- and fluid-intake regime, the diet, the clothing and the high altitude boots. Without him and his work, the ascent of Everest would have been impossible.

    Indeed, Hall attempted to climb the mountain during a deadly season in which eleven people perished. And he was, in fact, pronounced dead, after collapsing from altitude sickness. Two Sherpas spent hours trying to revive him, but as darkness fell, word came via radio from the expedition's leader that they should descend in order to save themselves. The news of Hall's death traveled rapidly from mountaineering websites to news media around the world, and ultimately to his family back in Australia. Early the next morning, however, an American guide, climbing with two clients and a Sherpa, was startled to find Hall sitting cross-legged on a sharp crest of the summit ridge. In this page-turning account of survival against all odds, Hall chronicles in fascinating detail the days and nights that led up to his fateful night in Mount Everest's "death zone." His story is all the more miraculous given his climbing history. Hall had been part of Australia's first attempt to reach the top of Everest in 1984 but had not done any major climbing for many years, having set aside his passion in order to support his family. While others in the team achieved their dream during this 1984 expedition, Hall was forced to turn back due to illness. Thus, his triumph in reaching the summit at the age of fifty is a story unto itself. So, too, is Hall's description of his family's experience back in Australia, as sudden grief turned to relief and joy in a matter of hours. Rarely has there been such a thrilling narrative of one man's encounter with the world's tallest mountain.

    He lives with his wife in Rialto, CA. Writer David Duron is a writer and longtime television-news producer who lives in Yucaipa, CA.

    Stories include Jon Krakauer's first-person look at the risks of climbing Mt. McKinley's West Buttress route, which has killed scores of climbers in recent years; Chris Bonington's classic account of the Annapurna expedition, which introduced technical rock climbing at high altitude; Tom Patey's hilarious profile of the great climber and even greater misanthrope Don Whilans, describing an attempt the two made on the Eiger North Face; and Rob Taylor's experience breaking a leg high on Africa's Mount Kenya.

    But when his twelve-year-old son gets bitten by the climbing bug at summer camp, Obmascik can't resist the opportunity for some high-altitude father-son bonding by hiking a peak together. After their first joint climb, addled by the thin air, Obmascik decides to keep his head in the clouds and try scaling all 54 of Colorado's 14,000-foot mountains, known as the Fourteeners -- and to do them in less than one year. The result is Halfway to Heaven, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Obmascik's rollicking, witty, sometimes harrowing, often poignant chronicle of an outrageous midlife adventure that is no walk in the park, although sometimes it's A Walk in the Woods -- but with more sweat and less oxygen. Half a million people try climbing a Colorado Fourteener every year, but only twelve hundred have reported summiting them all. Can an overweight, stay-at-home dad become No. 1,201? With his ebullient personality and sparkling prose, Obmascik brings us inside the quirky, colorful subculture of mountaineering obsessives who summit these mountains year after year. Honoring his concerned wife's orders not to climb alone, Obmascik drags old friends up the slopes, some of them lifelong flatlanders tasting thin air for the first time, and lures seasoned Rockies junkies into taking on a huffing, puffing newbie by bribing them with free beer, lunches, and car washes. Among the new friends he makes are an ex-drag racer trying to perform a headstand on every summit, the lead oboe player in a Hebrew salsa band, and a climber with the counterproductive pre-climb ritual of gulping down four beers and a burrito. Along the way, Obmascik experiences the raw, rowdy, and rarely seen intimacy of male friendship, braced by the double intoxicants of adrenaline and altitude. Though danger is always present -- the Colorado Fourteeners have killed more climbers than Mount Everest -- Mark knows his aging scalp can't afford the hair-raising adventures of Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, and his quest becomes a story of family, friendship, and fraternity. In Obmascik's summer of climbing, he loses fifteen pounds, finds a few dozen man-dates, and gains respect for the history of these storied mountains (home to cannibalism, gold rushes, shoot-outs, and one of the nation's most famed religious shrines). As much about midlife and male bonding as it is about mountains, Halfway to Heaven tells how weekend warriors can survive them all as they reach for those most distant things -- the summits of mountains and a teenage son. And as one man exceeds the physical achievements of his youth, he discovers that age -- like summit height -- is just a number.

    For someone who hates exercise, Kristy Chambers is pretty good at running away, and coming back again when her credit cards are declined. She’s not so much an international jetsetter as a loose cannon with a passport. So, in the manner of Eat, Pray, Love, a privileged white girl takes her privileged white arse on the road in an attempt to find happiness. With a family history of mental illness that goes back generations and a complicated long-term relationship with depression, will eating all the pasta in Italy help her to find the silver lining she’s looking for? Of course it won’t. It’s pasta, not magic beans. Joined by the most unreliable travel companion of them all—her mental health—Kristy openly, honestly, and humorously recounts their adventures together.

    We visit lonesome desert canyons and fancy Fifth Avenue art galleries, journey throughout the Americas, Asia, the past and the present. The result is a brilliant book about man and nature, remnants and memory, a dashing tale of crime and detection.

    But it’s never too late to write your next story, and to go on your next adventure. In partnership with Cayman Jack, Thought Catalog presents a collection of 25 travel stories to inspire you to leave behind the predictable and take to the open road in search of the unforgettable. Your next great memory is waiting for you, whether you realize it or not. And these exceptional stories will help you find it.

    Las Vegas lures you to shed moral responsibility and piss away your money on indulgences like decadent food, entertainment, gambling, and sex. If you don't enjoy these pastimes, then what's the point of visiting the land of compromised values? Where else can you get a cheap steak, crash a Mexican wedding, get cold-decked in blackjack by a dealer named Dong, play video poker for thirteen straight hours, drink pina coladas out of a plastic coconut, bum a cigarette from an 85-year-old woman with an oxygen tank, speed away to the Spearmint Rhino in a free limo, get rubbed by a former Miss Teen USA, puke in the back of a cab driven by a retired Navy SEAL, snort cheap cocaine in the bathroom at O'Sheas, and then catch a lucky card on the river to crack pocket aces and win a poker tournament? Only in Las Vegas.

    No two bucket lists are the same, but each list has the same ultimate goal—to make the list maker feel like they are doing something useful with their life instead of just sitting around, writing lists, and watching Morgan Freeman movies. Dom had seen some of those lists and they looked so difficult that he wondered whether dying would be a better option than actually ticking off the items. "I am a paid-up life-member of a place called the comfort zone. People always go on about the importance of getting out of your comfort zone. Not me. Any day I can stay inside it is a good day. All of which makes it a bit odd that I decided to complete a bucket list of my own. Not just any bucket list though. This is a reverse bucket list—a bunch of stuff that I could have happily passed away without ever doing—stuff like getting a tattoo I'd instantly regret, arm wrestling a professional rugby player, and being the model for a life drawing class—and I recruited some of my closest family and friends to compile it for me. In hindsight, this was a bad idea. But here it is—my pain, discomfort, and humiliation for your pleasure."

    Of all his adventures, those he enjoyed on America’s Pacific Crest Trail in the Eighties are among his favourites. The PCT runs 2,600 miles from Mexico to Canada through desert, forest and mountain wildernesses. In Rattlesnakes and Bald Eagles Chris recounts not only his own six month w alk but also the longer story of the Trail, and shares his ideas on how it is developing and where it is all going with his many readers. Illustrated with Chris Townsend’s photographs from his long hike, and earlier, iconic images, Rattlesnakes and Bald Eagles will be the definitive Pacific Crest Trail account

     Culture has yet to turn away from the mythology of the ancient Greeks, and this fact can be seen in various aspects of our modern life. Through various forms of entertainment, we come across themes and events depicted in Homer’s works of the Iliad and Odyssey. We find ourselves viewing and referencing the strength and trials of Heracles. We even find various parallels between the lives and myths of the ancient Greeks to our own modern world. The history of Greece herself cannot be separated by the mythology of its ancient peoples. From heroes such as Heracles and Perseus, to the underhanded dealings of gods and mortals alike, their story is one a creative attempt to understand the forces which dwell about us and within us. In this book you will find specific stories central to Greek mythology. This is a key into understanding the mindset, not only of these ancient peoples, but of our modern world as well. We may not subscribe as the Greeks did to these myths as factual accounts of historical events, however, these tales allegorically represent the things that humankind still endures and rejoices in. In this text, you will find the spirit of love, of nature, of war and of peace. These myths often deal with very blunt subject matter, as they were the dominant lens through which the world was viewed during much of ancient Greece. The research and writing involved in bringing you this collection of Greek mythology has been an absolute pleasure, and I hope that you are as fascinated in reading this as I was in putting it together. Here Is A Preview Of What You'll Learn... In the Beginning, There was Chaos The Titans’ Rule The Olympian Rule Hercules and the Twelve Labors Other Important Beings in Greek Mythology Greek Mythology and Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey Meet Your Roman Doppelgangers BONUS! Find Inside… and much more! Download Your Copy Today! The contents of this book are easily worth over $10. To order "Greek Mythology: Discovering Greek Mythology!", click the BUY button and download your copy right now! Tags: Greek Mythology, Mythology, Ancient Greece, Civilizations, Ancient Civilizations, Greece, Greeks, Titans, Gods, Zeus, Hercules, Greek Gods, Apollo, Athena, Gaia, Chaos, Uranus, Cyclops, Chronos, Tartarus, Olympia, Poseidon, Aphrodite, Metis, Hades

    Douglas. It is an account of the way Douglas and other men found a richer life in the mountains and how they found something else besides.In such country Douglas has noted, "Men can find deep solitude and under conditions of grandeur that are startling, he can come to know both himself and God."The men of the story are such legendary characters as Roy Schaeffer and Jack Nelson, and the sheepherders, Indians, fisherman, and foresters who have learned to survive in the wilderness and enjoy it.