Fleeing the boredom that comes with comfort, he set off on a secondhand bicycle. The aim was simple: to pedal to the furthest point in each of Europe, Asia and Africa. He didn’t train or plan. He just started. The journey was an escape from an unremarkable existence, a pursuit of hardship, and a chance to shed the complacency of middle England. From the brutality of winter on the Tibetan plateau, to the claustrophobia of the Southeast Asian jungle, the quest provided Charlie with ample opportunity to test his mettle. Ultimately, though, the toughest challenge was entirely unforeseen.

    It means learning the hard lessons the mountains teach.Reinhold Messner calls Steve House the best high=altitude climber in the world today, an honor he declines. "Being called the 'best,'" says Steve, "makes me very uncomfortable. My intention is to be as good as I can be. Mountaineering is too complex to be squeezed into a competition. It is simply not something that lends itself to comparison. Climbing is about process, not achievement. The moment your mind wanders away from the task of the climbing-at-hand will be the moment you fail."Steve House built his reputation on ascents throughout the Alps, Canada, Alaska, the Karakoram and the Himalaya that have expanded possibilities of style, speed, and difficulty. In 2005 Steve and alpinist Vince Anderson pioneered a direct new route on the Rupal Face of 26,600-foot Nanga Parbat, which had never before been climbed in alpine style. It was the third ascent of the face and the achievement earned Steve and Vince the first Piolet d"or (Golden Ice Axe) awarded to North Americans.Steve is an accomplished and spellbinding storyteller in the tradition of Maurice Herzog and Lionel Terray. Beyond the Mountain is a gripping read destined to be a mountain classic. And it addresses many issues common to nonclimbing life -- mentorship, trust, failure success, goal setting, heroes, partnership -- as well as the mountaineer's heightened experience of risk and the deaths of friends. Beyond the Mountain is a window into the process of a man working to be the best he can be.

    Centered on her quest to climb and ski the Seven Summits, Higher Love is a hero’s journey, rich with personal insights, life-threatening consequences, and a thrilling crescendo.Spanning seven continents in just two years, this is Kit’s personal account of the secret journey that would change her heart and her life forever. From braving Antarctica’s bone-chilling temperatures to trudging through an African rain forest, from corn snow on the continental slopes of Australia to blue ice on Everest, Kit leads you up each mountain and gives you a heart-racing ride back down.This candid, fast-paced story shows how inspiration, teamwork and honoring our true nature blazes the trail to every summit, on or off the mountain.

    The result was a route so hard and serious that for decades nobody believed they had climbed it – it is still unrepeated to this day. Then, raising the bar even higher, they made the first ascent of the south-west face of Denali, a climb that would prove almost fatal for Simon, and one which would break the bond between him and climbing, separating the two young climbers. But the bond between Simon and Jack couldn’t remain dormant forever. A lifetime later, a chance reconnection with Jack gave Simon the chance to bury the ghosts of what happened high on Denali, when he had faced almost certain death.The Bond is Simon McCartney’s story of these legendary climbs.

    Praised by Bear Grylls, Levison Wood has been called "the toughest man on TV" (The Times UK). Now, following in the footsteps of the great explorers, Levison recounts the beauty and danger he found along the Silk Road route of Afghanistan, the Line of Control between Pakistan and India, the disputed territories of Kashmir and the earth-quake ravaged lands of Nepal. Over the course of six months, Wood and his trusted guides trek 1,700 gruelling miles across the roof of the world.Packed with action and emotion, Walking the Himalayas is the story of one intrepid man's travels in a world poised on the edge of tremendous change.

    He had a lot to look forward to-a long career ahead of him in the army, a beautiful girlfriend back home. But those dreams were cut short when his parachute failed to open at eleven thousand feet. He had cracked three vertebrae and come within a fraction of severing his spinal cord. A grueling eight months of physical therapy followed. Bear had to retrain his muscles to do all of the things we take for granted-how to sit, stand, walk, even breathe. Eighteen months after his accident he overcame incredible odds to reach the peak of Everest. THE KID WHO CLIMBED EVEREST is a tale of courage and determination. Bear's quest for funding for his expedition, his seventy days on Everest's southeast face, and a narrow brush with death after a fall into a crevasse at nineteen thousand feet, make the story an essential read for anyone who's ever had a dream and made it come true.

    The compelling account of recklessness, tragedy, courage, and rescue, this book's sobering depiction of Nature's danger is tempered by unforgettable portraits of the triumphant human spirit.

    In the 1930s, as official government expeditions set their sights on conquering Mount Everest, a little-known World War I veteran named Maurice Wilson conceives his own crazy, beautiful plan: he will fly a plane from England to Everest, crash-land on its lower slopes, then become the first person to reach its summit—all utterly alone. Wilson doesn’t know how to climb. He barely knows how to fly. But he has the right plane, the right equipment, and a deep yearning to achieve his goal. In 1933, he takes off from London in a Gipsy Moth biplane with his course set for the highest mountain on earth. Wilson’s eleven-month journey to Everest is wild: full of twists, turns, and daring. Eventually, in disguise, he sneaks into Tibet. His icy ordeal is just beginning. Wilson is one of the Great War’s heroes, but also one of its victims. His hometown of Bradford in northern England is ripped apart by the fighting. So is his family. He barely survives the war himself. Wilson returns from the conflict unable to cope with the sadness that engulfs him. He begins a years-long trek around the world, burning through marriages and relationships, leaving damaged lives in his wake. When he finally returns to England, nearly a decade after he first left, he finds himself falling in love once more—this time with his best friend’s wife—before depression overcomes him again. He emerges from his funk with a crystalline ambition. He wants to be the first man to stand on top of the world. Wilson believes that Everest can redeem him. This is the tale of an adventurer unlike any you have ever encountered: complex, driven, wry, haunted, and fully alive. He is a man written out of the history books—dismissed as an eccentric, and gossiped about because of rumors of his transvestism. The Moth and the Mountain restores Maurice Wilson to his rightful place in the annals of Everest and tells an unforgettable story about the power of the human spirit in the face of adversity.

    Their globe-spanning travels and side-splitting adventures are recounted in Blown Away, a sort of Swiss Family Robinson by way of the Marx Brothers.

    Throughout it all Ellis Stewart shows a sense of humility and compassion sharing a heartfelt and emotional twenty year journey. From the streets of northern England through to the valleys and high mountains of Nepal, Stewart shared his story with thousands of followers on social media, winning over the hearts and minds of many. A ground swell of support sent Stewart to achieve his dream, not once but twice. Nobody could have anticipated the events that would follow. Events that would define Stewart in ways he couldn't possibly have imagined. Stewart is not your stereotypical mountaineer. Through the steps he took and his entrepreneurial spirit he was able to fund almost entirely the costs for two Everest expeditions without corporate assistance. In the summer of 2015 Stewart began to write his story of being caught up in these two tragic seasons on Everest. In this very book, he writes very candidly about not only his experiences on the mountain but also what drove and propelled him towards Everest in the first place. Not able to entice a publisher to take the project on, Stewart wouldn’t take no for an answer and decided to self-publish the book. After launching a massively successful crowdfunding campaign Stewart was able to pay the editing and printing costs to release this book as a paperback, which he did to rave reviews in late 2016. Due to popular demand Stewart launched another campaign to bring the book out in the hardcover format. Again this was a success. Everest: It’s not about the Summit, invites you into an intoxicating world, one where the margin between success and failure is brutally slim. This is a moving book with tragedy and commitment to a cause as a very central theme. It is a real story about real people. Whether it’s your usual genre of book or not doesn't matter as it's basically a cracking story. You don’t need to be a climber to enjoy this book at all. It has universal appeal and is a true inspirational cliff hanger for all. This book should be on the bookshelf of all active and armchair mountaineers alike. Amazon Review Epic. One of the best. This book is epic. It is up there and stands side to side with other mountaineering adventures like Into Thin Air, The Climb and Touching the Void. What this book does best though is convey the dreams and raw emotions of a man whose aspiration has always been to climb Everest. But it is also about adaptation to what life throws at you. If you are feeling down or dejected in anyway and want to be lifted. Read this book. Amazon Review I have just finished reading this book and I was blown away by Ellis’s story. I have read numerous other books about Everest expeditions and, like many other people, Jon Krakauer's account of the tragic1996 season started me on a trajectory to learn more about the trials and tribulations this mountain presents, from both a professional mountaineering perspective and as a commercial enterprise - albeit from the comfort of my sofa! The question one really has to ask when reviewing a book on a well documented subject is: “Why read this one?”. My answer is this: Many accounts of Everest expeditions tend towards ‘the macho’, ‘the personal achievement’ and ‘the surmounting of odds’ in terms of central narrative and descriptive style, whereas this is a deeply

    His accomplishments are staggering. He has summited Everest twelve times. He is the first person in history to climb the three Everest peaks, the so-called Triple Crown, in one climb, a feat previously thought impossible. He was nominated for the prestigious piolet d'Or in 2004 for climbing a previously unclimbed route on Annapurna III. In 2012 he fulfilled the Olympic Games pledge of placing a 1924 gold medal on the Everest summit. He is the only Briton to have skied down two 8000-metre mountains, and in 2009 he guided Sir Ranulph Fiennes to the summit of Everest, helping to raise over £3 million for Marie Curie Cancer Care.His accomplishments are all the more extraordinary considering an incident in the summer of 1996 which tore Kenton's world apart. Whilst climbing in Wales, he broke a handhold on a route aptly called 'Major Headstress' and fell to the ground with such force that he shattered both his heel bones. Initially told he would never walk unaided again, Kenton spent four weeks in hospital, had three operations, three and a half months in a wheelchair and months of rehab. Today he is still in pain and after a long day in the mountains it's not uncommon to see him struggling to walk or moving around on his hands and knees. Yet he still climbs.'Why do you do it?' people ask him. This book tells why.

    In 1947, defying social convention, Washburn became the first woman to climb Alaska's Mt. McKinley. She accompanied her husband, Bradford Washburn, on other expeditions to Alaska, the Grand Canyon, and Mt. Everest, while raising three children at their home near Boston.

    Enveloped by mystery whether he reached Mount Everest's summit before his fall, he continues to grip the imagination. An exceptionally gifted and driven climber, his spell-binding memory inspires mountaineers to this day, attracting lively speculation as well as fact-finding expeditions to retrace his steps. Climbing Everest gathers for the first time Mallory's influential canon on mountaineering from its disparate locations in archives.Mallory was unique in drawing a new literature from his mountain craft. For him, as for his predecessors, earth was still a heroic place with hidden parts promising novel experiences while the eyes of history were trained upon them. But he was strongly inspired by the Bloomsbury group, unlike previous explorers, and a talented writer and poet. He chose to break with the Edwardian stiff upper lip in favor of emotional truthfulness about the art of climbing. The result created a novel branch of mountaineering literature, as fresh and vivid as the feelings he recorded in handwriting under the most harrowingly extreme mountain-top conditions.--From the 2010 edition.

    Dick Bass had made his fortune as an energy and resort entrepreneur. In middle age, both men left behind home, family, and successful careers to share an impossible dream. Seven Unconquered Summits The challenge: be the first to climb the highest mountain on each of seven continents, from McKinley to Kilimanjaro to Everest. The obstacles: many and merciless, from ice storms to illness to a measurement question that threatened to make their record-breaking expedition a sham. The prize: the sheer, exhilarating triumph of standing at the top of every continent on earth.

    No one knows the outer limits of our changing planet quite like him. In May 2014, the mountaineer and scientist John All plunged into a crevasse in the Himalayas, a fall that all but killed him. He recorded a series of dramatic videos as he struggled to climb seven stories back up to the surface with a severely dislocated shoulder, internal bleeding, a battered face covered in blood, and fifteen broken bones--including six cracked vertebrae. The videos became a viral sensation, an urgent and gripping dispatch from one of the least-known extremes of the planet. Yet this climb for his life is only the latest of John All's adventures in some of Earth's most hostile climates. He has also been chased by a wild hyena, scaled Everest, and narrowly missed being hit by an avalanche, all in pursuit of his true calling: the study of how we can master the challenge of our world's changing climate. Icefall is a thrilling adventure story and a report from the extremes of the planet, taking you to collapsing Andean glaciers, hidden jungles in Honduras, and the highest points on Earth. In this gripping account, our changing climate is not a matter of politics; it's a matter of life and death and the human will to survive and thrive in the face of it.