As a young man, he climbed the peaks of this singular range with basic climbing gear friends. Later in life, he led treks in India, Pakistan, Nepal, China, Tibet, and Peru, but he always returned to the mountains of his youth. He continues to climb the Tetons as a guide for Exum Mountain, Guides, the oldest and most prestigious guide service in America. Teewinot is his ode to forty years in the mountains that he loves. Like Thoreau and Muir, Turner has contemplated the essential nature of a landscape. Teewinot is a book about a mountain range, its austere temper, its seasons, its flora and fauna, a few of its climbs, its weather, and the glory of the wildness. It is also about a small group of guides and rangers, nomads who inhabit the range each summer and know the mountains as intimately as they will ever be known. It is also a remarkable account of what it is like to live and work in a national park. Teewinot has something for everyone: spellbinding accounts of classic climbs, awe at the beauty of nature, and passion for some of the environmental issues facing America today. In this series of recollections, one of America's most beautiful national parks comes alive with beauty, mystery, and power. The beauty, mystery, and power of the Grand Tetons come alive in Jack Turner's memoir of a year on America's most beautiful mountain range.

    His account frames a challenging autobiography, by turns hilarious and gut-wrenching.

    In some ways the model for the new wave of adventure books, Adrift is an undeniable seafaring classic, a riveting firsthand account by the only man known to have survived more than a month alone at sea, fighting for his life in an inflatable raft after his small sloop capsized only six days out. Adrift is a must-have for any adventure library.

    And every year, more than 30,000 adventure tourists try. But for each person who goes to the mountain, there are thousands more who chat about it at cocktail parties, making plans to go...someday. That's how Daniel Dorr got started: flirting with a beautiful brunette over hot cocoa and spouting impressive plans. Six months later, he was lying on the cold gravel trail at 18,000 feet, panting and hacking in the darkness.Dorr is a typical marketing exec by day but, amped up by his re-acquaintance with a romantic interest, he gained the determination to pursue one of his lifelong dreams -- summiting Kilimanjaro. When Dorr left behind the familiarity of his weekend-warrior lifestyle in Southern California to reach the top of the 19,340-foot peak, he didn't realize he would cross a threshold to a new way of life. As he fondles expensive hi-tech gear, gets vaccinated for the jungle, travels local-style across East Africa, and vomits on top of the African continent, readers share in the rewards, both large and small, of reaching for personal fulfillment through adventure travel.

    Every February, a handful of hardy souls spends over two weeks racing sleds pulled by fourteen dogs over 1,023 miles of frozen rivers, icy mountain passes, and spruce forests as big as entire states, facing temperatures that drop to forty degrees below zero on nights that are seventeen hours long.Why would anyone want to enter this race? John Balzar-who moved to Alaska and lived on the trail-treats us to a vivid account of the grueling race itself, offering an insightful look at the men and women who have moved to this rugged and beautiful place. Readers will also be fascinated by Balzar's account of what goes into the training and care of the majestic dogs who pull the sleds and whose courage, strength, and devotion make them the true heroes of this story.

    Simultaneous.

    Part of Muir's attractiveness to modern readers is the fact that he was an activist. He not only explored the West and wrote about its beauties-- he fought for their preservation. His successes dot the landscape in all the natural features that bear his name: forests, lakes, trails, glaciers. Here collected are some of his finest wilderness essays, ranging from Alaska to Yellowstone, from Oregon to the Range of Light-- the High Sierra. This series celebrates the tradition of literary naturalists-- writers who embrace the natural world as the setting for some of our most euphoric and serious experiences. Their literary terrain maps the intimate connections between the human and natural worlds, a subject defined by Mary Austin in 1920 as "a third thing... the sum of what passed between me and the Land." Literary naturalists transcend political boundaries, social concerns, and historical milieus; they speak for what Henry Beston called the "other nations" of the planet. Their message acquires more weight and urgency as wild places become increasingly scarce. This series, then, celebrates both a wonderful body of work and a fundamental truth: that nature counts as a model, a guide to how we can live in the world.

    The climbers on Alaska's Mt. McKinley called her "the woman." Ruth Anne Kocour, a world-class mountaineer, wasn't bothered. It was part of the challenge she faced as she joined an all-male team to conquer North America's highest peak...the mountain the Indians called Denali, or God.Faced the extreme. But nine days into this ascent, a forty-fifth birthday present to herself, the most violent weather on record slammed into the mountain. Ruth Anne and her group would be trapped on an ice shelf at 14,000 feet for the deadliest two weeks in Denali history. Pinned down by blinding snows, unable to help other teams dying around her, and her own feet freezing solid, Ruth Anne tells of a wind chill of minus 150 degrees, deadly hidden crevasses, and being trapped in a place so violent and unforgiving that it threatened to push her over the edge and into a place of no return. And yet, in prose as crystalline as the ice around her, she tells, too, of beauty, courage, and the spirit that drives true mountainers higher, as she risks all to go for the summit...and perhaps, for a transcendant moment, touch heaven.And lived to tell about it.

    Martin and I descend from hours of walking to the small town of Middleton-in-Teesdale. I walk, stiff legged, into the campsite office and a plump, middle-aged woman looks up from her desk and can see the old timer is in trouble. “Oh, what a shame you weren’t here last week,” she says, pity radiating from behind her horn-rimmed specs. “You’ve missed him.” I look at her, puzzled. “Elvis!” she explains. “You missed Elvis.” Oh God, now I’m hallucinating. From remote glens deep in the Scottish Highlands, John D Burns brings a new volume of tales – some dramatic, some moving, some hilarious – from the isolated shelters mountain people call bothies. Travel with Burns to secret places hidden amongst the British mountains and share his passion for the wonderful wildness of our uplands. Meet the vivid cast of characters who play their games there, from climbers with more balls than sense to a young man who doesn’t have the slightest idea what he’s letting himself in for…

    This is a radiant and deeply moving account of a "true pilgrimage, a journey of the heart."

    . . who has discovered through the medium of mountains the true perspective of living." --Sir John Hunt, author of The Conquest of Everest Known for his lyrical writing and his ability to convey not only the dangers of mountaineering but the pure exaltation of the climb, Gaston Rebuffat is among the most well-known and revered Alpinists of all time. He rose to international prominence in 1950 as one of the four principal stalwarts in the first ascent of Annapurna, the highest mountain climbed at that time. Yet his finest feat as a mountaineer was to be the first man to climb all six of the legendary great north faces of the Alps--the Grandes Jorasses, the Piz Badile, the Dru, the Matterhorn, the Cima Grande di Lava-redo, and the Eiger.With this elegant book, first published in 1954, Gaston Rebuffat transformed mountain writing. His insistence on seeing a climb as an act of harmonious communion with the mountain, not a battle waged against it, seemed radical at the time, though Rebuffat's aesthetic has since won the day. Through storms, avalanches, rock fall, unplanned bivouacs, and even the deaths of companions, we follow the Chamonix guide to the altar of his communion, on dark, icy walls that struck terror into the hearts of Europe's finest mountaineers. Nor are these deft narratives mere recitations of dangers faced and obstacles overcome, for Rebuffat pays as keen attention to the joys of comradeship won on these faces as he does to the climbs themselves. In our own day of corporate sponsorships, online expeditions, and eco-vacations, the purity of Rebuffat's vision of the Alps as (in the epithet of the title of another of his books) an "enchanted garden" shines forth in prose as fresh and stylish as any ever lavished on mountaineering.

    Eerie aspects of the incident—unexplained violent injuries, signs that they cut open and fled the tent without proper clothing or shoes, a strange final photograph taken by one of the hikers, and elevated levels of radiation found on some of their clothes—have led to decades of speculation over what really happened. This gripping work of literary nonfiction delves into the mystery through unprecedented access to the hikers' own journals and photographs, rarely seen government records, dozens of interviews, and the author's retracing of the hikers' fateful journey in the Russian winter. A fascinating portrait of the young hikers in the Soviet era, and a skillful interweaving of the hikers narrative, the investigators' efforts, and the author's investigations, here for the first time is the real story of what happened that night on Dead Mountain

    The state of Slovenia was split up amongst Germany, Hungary and Italy. Partisan groups, under the leadership of Josip Tito, managed to liberate the state by 1945, and then began a period of relative calm, under the benevolent rule of Tito. A Communist, he began to distance himself from the Soviet Union, looking to western economic models as Yugoslavia struggled to rebuild. During the thirty years following the war, a Yugoslavian passport was one of the best in the world, and Yugoslavians could travel freely during this time, if they had the money. Most did not.But alpinists did. Through centralized government programs that established elaborate training régimes and state-supported expeditions abroad, Yugoslavian alpinists began making impressive climbs in the Himalaya as early as 1960. By the early 70’s, they had advanced to the 8000ers. Although not exclusively Slovenian, the teams were – not surprisingly – dominated by Slovenian climbers, since Slovenia is blessed with the Julian Alps. A fiercely steep range of limestone peaks, the Julian Alps provided the ideal training ground for Slovenian climbers, in both summer and winter. The brooding north faces and razor-sharp ridges taught them the skills they would need on the highest mountains on earth – the Himalaya.But when Tito died in 1980, the calm period ended. Inter-ethnic conflict and economic decline ripped the country apart. Serbian Communist leader, Slobodan Miloševic, led the charge with, what appeared to be an unstoppable strategy of aggression and oppression. But he misread the strength and character of several Yugoslavian states, including that most northerly one – Slovenia. By the summer of 1991, Slovenia was an independent country.Slovenia continued the tradition of support for climbers, and success breeds success. By 1995, all of the 8000ers had been climbed by Slovenian teams. And in the next ten years, some of the most dramatic and futuristic climbs were made by Slovenian climbers. Apart from a few superstars, most of these amazing athletes remain unknown in the West.What prompted this Himalayan performance by a tiny nation of just two million people? Life in Slovenia during this period was defined by shortages, preoccupation with ethnic conflict and poor living conditions. Yet, like had previously happened in Poland, its neighbor to the North, Slovenian climbers seemed to thrive and excel in these trying conditions, setting standards that no other country could replicate. Alpine Warriors explores the explosion of Slovenian alpinism within the context of its turbulent political history.

    He is searching for primeval beauty and a respite from the corruption, violence, and self-destructive urges that typify modern Russian culture, but instead he finds the roots of that culture—in Cossack villages unchanged for centuries, in Soviet outposts full of listless drunks, in stark ruins of the gulag, and in grand forests hundreds of miles from the nearest hamlet.That’s how far Tayler is from help when he realizes that his guide, Vadim, a burly Soviet army veteran embittered by his experiences in Afghanistan, detests all humanity, including Tayler. Yet he needs Vadim’s superb skills if he is to survive a voyage that quickly turns hellish. They must navigate roiling whitewater in howling storms, but they eschew life jackets because, as Vadim explains, the frigid water would kill them before they could swim to shore. Though Tayler has trekked by camel through the Sahara and canoed down the Congo during the revolt against Mobutu, he has never felt so threatened as he does now.

    For on that rainy morning, the young Yale professor Hiram Bingham III climbed into the Andes Mountains of Peru and encountered an ancient city in the clouds: the now famous citadel of Machu Picchu. Nearly a century later, news reports have recast the hero explorer as a villain who smuggled out priceless artifacts and stole credit for finding one of the world's greatest archaeological sites. Mark Adams has spent his career editing adventure and travel magazines, so his plan to investigate the allegations against Bingham by retracing the explorer's perilous path to Machu Picchu isn't completely far- fetched, even if it does require him to sleep in a tent for the first time. With a crusty, antisocial Australian survivalist and several Quechua-speaking, coca-chewing mule tenders as his guides, Adams takes readers through some of the most gorgeous and historic landscapes in Peru, from the ancient Inca capital of Cusco to the enigmatic ruins of Vitcos and Vilcabamba. Along the way he finds a still-undiscovered country populated with brilliant and eccentric characters, as well as an answer to the question that has nagged scientists since Hiram Bingham's time: Just what was Machu Picchu?