Eiger Dreams

by Krakauer, Jon

• ISBN13: 9780440209904
• ISBN10: 0440209900
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1992-09-01
• Publisher: Dell Pub Co

Summary

No one writes about mountaineering and its attendant victories and hardships more brilliantly than Jon Krakauer. In this collection of his finest essays and reporting, Krakauer writes of mountains from the memorable perspective of one who has himself struggled with solo madness to scale Alaska's notorious Devils Thumb. In Pakistan, the fearsome K2 kills thirteen of the world's most experienced mountain climbers in one horrific summer. In Valdez, Alaska, two men scale a frozen waterfall over a four-hundred-foot drop. In France, a hip international crowd of rock climbers, bungee jumpers, and paragliders figure out new ways to risk their lives on the towering peaks of Mont Blanc. Why do they do it? How do they do it? In this extraordinary book, Krakauer presents an unusual fraternity of daredevils, athletes, and misfits stretching the limits of the possible. From the paranoid confines of a snowbound tent, to the thunderous, suffocating terror of a white-out on Mount McKinley,Eiger Dreamsspins tales of driven lives, sudden deaths, and incredible victories. This is a stirring, vivid book about one of the most compelling and dangerous of all human pursuits. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Table of Contents

No one writes about mountaineering and its attendant hardships and victories more brilliantly than Jon Krakauer

In this first collection of his finest work from such magazines as Outside and Smithsonian

Krakauer explores the subject from the unique and memorable perspective of one who has battled peaks like K2, Denali, Everest, and, of course, the Eiger

Always with a keen eye, an open heart, and a hunger for the ultimate experience, he gives us unerring portraits of the mountaineering experience

Yet Eiger Dreams is more about people than about rock and ice - people with that odd, sometimes maniacal obsession with mountain summits that sets them apart from other men and women

Here we meet Adrian the Romanian, determined to be the first of his countrymen to solo Denali

John Gill, climber not of great mountains but of house-sized boulders so difficult to surmount that even demanding alpine climbs seem easy; and many more

In the most intimate piece, "The Devils Thumb," Krakauer recounts his own near-fatal, ultimately triumphant struggle with solo-madness as he scales Alaska's Devils Thumb

Eiger Dreams is stirring, vivid writing about one of the most compelling and dangerous of all human pursuits

(6 1/4 X 9 1/4. 202 pages)

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.