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The Will to Climb

Obsession and Commitment and the Quest to Climb Annapurna--the World's Deadliest Peak

Author Ed Viesturs, David Roberts
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Ebook
Crown
On sale Oct 04, 2011 | 304 Pages | 9780307720443
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The bestselling author of The Mountain and No Shortcuts to the Top chronicles his three attempts to climb the world’s tenth-highest and statistically deadliest peak while exploring the dramatic and tragic history of others who have made—or attempted—the ascent.

“Viesturs and Roberts have written an exhaustively researched and wonderfully compelling history of the most fascinating and dangerous of the Himalayan giants.”—David Breashers, veteran mountaineer and documentary filmmaker, director of IMAX film Everest

As a high school student, Ed Viesturs read and was captivated by the French climber Maurice Herzog’s famous and grisly account of the first ascent of Annapurna in 1950. When he began his own campaign to climb the world’s fourteen highest peaks in the late 1980s, Viesturs looked forward with trepidation to undertaking Annapurna himself. Two failures to summit in 2000 and 2002 made Annapurna his nemesis. His successful 2005 ascent was the triumphant capstone of his climbing quest.

In The Will to Climb Viesturs and co-author David Roberts bring the extraordinary challenges of Annapurna to vivid life through edge-of-your-seat accounts of the greatest climbs in the mountain’s history, and of his own failed attempts and eventual success. In the process Viesturs ponders what Annapurna reveals about some of our most fundamental moral and spiritual questions—questions, he believes, that we need to answer to lead our lives well.
         Foreword, by Roger Goodell, Commissioner of the National Football         League           
         Chapter One: The Brick Wall       
         Chapter Two: A New and Splendid Life      
         Chapter Three: South Face          
         Chapter Four: So Close to the Dead                
         Chapter Five: The Door to the Land of the Living        
         Chapter Six: Messner and Kukuczka              
         Chapter Seven: Comet on Annapurna             
         Chapter Eight: My Annapurna      
         Epilogue: Goddess of the Harvests         
         Acknowledgments                       
         Bibliography
Ed Viesturs climbs and loves to seek out new adventures. He lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington, with his wife and three children. His books include The Mountain, The Will to Climb, K2, and No Shortcuts to the Top.  You can find more information about Viesturs and his work at edviesturs.com View titles by Ed Viesturs

David Roberts was the author of more than twenty books on mountaineering, adventure, and history, including No Shortcuts to the Top, K2, and The Will to Climb, which he co-wrote with Ed Viesturs and a memoir On The Ridge Between Life and Death. He has written for National Geographic, National Geographic Adventure, and Smithsonian. David Roberts passed away in 2021.

View titles by David Roberts

About

The bestselling author of The Mountain and No Shortcuts to the Top chronicles his three attempts to climb the world’s tenth-highest and statistically deadliest peak while exploring the dramatic and tragic history of others who have made—or attempted—the ascent.

“Viesturs and Roberts have written an exhaustively researched and wonderfully compelling history of the most fascinating and dangerous of the Himalayan giants.”—David Breashers, veteran mountaineer and documentary filmmaker, director of IMAX film Everest

As a high school student, Ed Viesturs read and was captivated by the French climber Maurice Herzog’s famous and grisly account of the first ascent of Annapurna in 1950. When he began his own campaign to climb the world’s fourteen highest peaks in the late 1980s, Viesturs looked forward with trepidation to undertaking Annapurna himself. Two failures to summit in 2000 and 2002 made Annapurna his nemesis. His successful 2005 ascent was the triumphant capstone of his climbing quest.

In The Will to Climb Viesturs and co-author David Roberts bring the extraordinary challenges of Annapurna to vivid life through edge-of-your-seat accounts of the greatest climbs in the mountain’s history, and of his own failed attempts and eventual success. In the process Viesturs ponders what Annapurna reveals about some of our most fundamental moral and spiritual questions—questions, he believes, that we need to answer to lead our lives well.

Table of Contents

         Foreword, by Roger Goodell, Commissioner of the National Football         League           
         Chapter One: The Brick Wall       
         Chapter Two: A New and Splendid Life      
         Chapter Three: South Face          
         Chapter Four: So Close to the Dead                
         Chapter Five: The Door to the Land of the Living        
         Chapter Six: Messner and Kukuczka              
         Chapter Seven: Comet on Annapurna             
         Chapter Eight: My Annapurna      
         Epilogue: Goddess of the Harvests         
         Acknowledgments                       
         Bibliography

Author

Ed Viesturs climbs and loves to seek out new adventures. He lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington, with his wife and three children. His books include The Mountain, The Will to Climb, K2, and No Shortcuts to the Top.  You can find more information about Viesturs and his work at edviesturs.com View titles by Ed Viesturs

David Roberts was the author of more than twenty books on mountaineering, adventure, and history, including No Shortcuts to the Top, K2, and The Will to Climb, which he co-wrote with Ed Viesturs and a memoir On The Ridge Between Life and Death. He has written for National Geographic, National Geographic Adventure, and Smithsonian. David Roberts passed away in 2021.

View titles by David Roberts

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