No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World's 14 Highest Peaks (Unabridged)
-
- $14.99
Publisher Description
THIS GRIPPING AND TRIUMPHANT MEMOIR FOLLOWS A LIVING LEGEND OF EXTREME MOUNTAINEERING AS HE MAKES HIS ASSAULT ON HISTORY, ONE 8,000-METER SUMMIT AT A TIME.
For eighteen years Ed Viesturs pursued climbing’s holy grail: to stand atop the world’s fourteen 8,000-meter peaks, without the aid of bottled oxygen. But No Shortcuts to the Top is as much about the man who would become the first American to achieve that goal as it is about his stunning quest. As Viesturs recounts the stories of his most harrowing climbs, he reveals a man torn between the flat, safe world he and his loved ones share and the majestic and deadly places where only he can go.
Viesturs lives by an unyielding motto, “Reaching the summit is optional. Getting down is mandatory.” It is with this philosophy that he vividly describes fatal errors in judgment made by his fellow climbers as well as a few of his own close calls and gallant rescues. And, for the first time, he details his own pivotal and heroic role in the 1996 Everest disaster made famous in Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air.
No Shortcuts to the Top is more than the first full account of one of the staggering accomplishments of our time; it is a portrait of a brave and devoted family man and his beliefs that shaped this most perilous and magnificent pursuit.
Customer Reviews
Lots of climbing info
This book has lots of great info and insight into mountain climbing from a guy who has done it all. That being said, Ed Vesturs is not a born writer and this books reads more like a high school “what did you do over the summer” essay. He should have hired a ghost writer to expand on the details, making them more visceral, not to mention using an experienced narrator to bring the text to life. Don’t get me wrong, I have great respect for Ed and all climbers. It’s just the writing was a bit flat.