A Day To Die For: 1996: Everest's Worst Disaster - One Survivor's Personal Journey to Uncover the Truth by Graham Ratcliffe

$12.00 NZD

Category: Mountaineering | Reading Level: good

On the night of 10-11 May 1996, eight climbers perished in what remains the worst disaster in Everest's history. Following the tragedy, numerous accounts were published, with Jon Krakauer's "Into Thin Air" becoming an international bestseller. But has the whole story been told? "A Day to Die For" reveal s the full, startling facts that led to the tragedy. Graham Ratcliffe, the first British climber to reach the summit of Mount Everest twice, was a first-hand witness, having spent the night on Everest's South Col at 26,000 ft, sheltering from the deadly storm. For years, he has shouldered a burden of guilt, feeling that he and his teammates could have saved lives that fateful night. His quest for answers has led to discoveries so important to an understanding of the disaster that he now questions why these facts were not made public sooner. History is dotted with high-profile disasters that both horrify and capture the attention of the public, but very rarely is our view of them revised to such devastating effect. ...Show more

Dead Lucky by Lincoln Hall

$12.00 NZD

Category: Mountaineering | Reading Level: very good

AWARDED SPECIAL JURY MENTION AT THE BANFF MOUNTAIN FILM AND BOOK FESTIVAL 2007 "The day I summitted Mount Everest was the day I died" Lincoln Hall set off for Everest in early May 2006. Five weeks after reaching Base Camp in Tibet, he began his push for the summit. After three days of climbing high er into the oxygenless air, he was blessed with a perfect summit day. For a few minutes, Hall was the highest man on the planet. His Sherpa companions arrived, photos were taken, and the climbers commenced their long descent. Then things began to go horribly wrong. Hall was struck by cerebral oedema - highaltitude sickness - in the aptly named 'death zone'. Drowsiness quickly became overpowering lethargy, and he collapsed in the snow. Two Sherpas spent hours trying to revive him, but as darkness fell he was pronounced dead. The expedition's leader ordered the Sherpas to descend to save themselves. The news of Hall's death travelled rapidly from mountaineering websites to news media around the world, and by satellite phone to Hall's family in Australia. Early the next day, Dan Mazur, an American mountaineering guide with two clients and a Sherpa, was startled to find Hall sitting cross-legged on the knife-edged crest of the summit ridge. Hall's first words - 'I imagine you are surprised to see me here' - were a massive understatement. Much was reported in the press about Hall's resurrection, but only he has real insight into what happened, and how he survived that longest night. DEAD LUCKY is Lincoln Hall's own account of climbing Everest during a deadly season in which eleven people perished on the world's highest mountain. ...Show more

Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer

$12.00 NZD

Category: Mountaineering | Reading Level: very good

Unabridged! When Jon Krakauer reached the summit of Mt. Everest in the early afternoon of May 10, 1996, he hadn't slept in fifty-seven hours and was reeling from the brain-altering affects of oxygen deprivation. As he turned to begin his long, dangerous decent from 29,028 feet, twenty other climbers wer e still pushing doggedly toward the top. No one had noticed that the sky had begun to fill with clouds. Six hours later and 3,000 feet lower, as the storm swept the peek with seventy-knot winds and blinding snow, Krakauer collapsed in his tent, freezing, hallucinating from exhaustion and hypoxia, but safe. The following morning he awakened to learn that six of his companions hadn't made it back to their camp, and were in a desperate struggle for their lives. When the storm finally passed, five of his fellow climbers would be dead, and the sixth so horribly frostbitten that he would have to have his right hand amputated. By the time all expeditions had quit the mountain and departed Nepal, twelve people had perished on the slopes of Everest. Into Thin Airis the definitive, personal account of the deadliest season in the history of Everest by the acclaimed journalist and author ofEiger DreamsandInto the Wild.On assignment fromOutsidemagazine, Krakauer, an accomplished climber, went to the Himalayas to report the growing commercialization of the planet's highest mountain. Everest has always been a dangerous mountain. From the first British expeditions in the 1920s until 1996, one climber has died for every four who have attained the summit.  This shocking death toll has not put a damper on the burgeoning business of guided ascents, however, in which amateur alpinists with alarmingly disparate skills are ushered up the mountain for a $65,000 fee. To ascend into the thin, frigid air above 26,000 feet--the cruising altitude of a commercial jetliner--is an inherently inrrational act. The environment is unimaginably harsh, the margin for error minuscule. Krakauer examines  what it is about Evereest that has compelled so many people--including himself--to throw caution to the wind, ignore the concerns of loved ones, and willingly subject themselves to such risk, hardship, and expense. Written with emotional clarity and supported by his unimpeachable reporting, Krakauer's frank eyewitness account of what happened on the roof of the world is a singular achievement. ...Show more

Where the Mountains Throw Their Dice: An Insight into the Kiwi Climbing Psyche by Paul Hersey

$15.00 NZD

Category: Mountaineering | Reading Level: very good

There are regular reports in the media of mountaineering fatalities and costly rescues, and to some of us climbing may seem a selfish and crazy game in which victims have only themselves to blame. But to Dunedin climber Paul Hersey climbing is nothing less than a reason for living; even if - or perhaps even because - at the most life-affirming moments he may be just one step from 'a tumble into the abyss'. In this fascinating book, which includes white-knuckle accounts of his own climbs in the South Island and the Italian Alps, Paul chats with some of New Zealand's most experienced climbers, such as Bill McLeod, Lydia Bradey and Erik Monasterio, to find out why they are drawn to the mountains, and why, even after losing close friends, they keep returning to this place of 'other-worldly limbo'. Accompanying the text are Paul's spectacular photographs from his own climbs. ...Show more

Between Heaven & Earth: The Life of a Mountaineer Freda Du Faur 1882 to 1935 by Sally Irwin

$15.00 NZD

Category: Mountaineering | Reading Level: good

About a woman born ahead of her time, this book takes the reader into the realms of the Blue Mountains, Ku-ring-gai Chase and the daring milieu of early mountaineering in the Southern Alps of NZ. It is also about the way Freda Du Faur had to conquer other obstacles on the way to realising her ambitions. ...Show more

No Ordinary Woman - The Story of Mary Schaffer Warren by Janice Sanford Beck

$15.00 NZD

Category: Biography | Reading Level: very good

Artist, photographer, writer and explorer Mary Schaffer Warren overcame the limited expectations of women a century ago in order to follow her dreams. Born into a wealthy Pennsylvania Quaker family, Mary Sharpless was a precocious child who longed to experience the world beyond her sheltered home. An 18 89 cross-Canada trip with her new husband, doctor and botanist Charles Schaffer, proved to be the turning point in her life: it was when she fell hopelessly in love with the Canadian mountains. After her husband's death in 1903, Mary embarked upon a series of explorations in the Canadian Rockies that were far more extensive than was thought proper for a woman at the time. Her most famous trips, in 1907 and 1908, led to the rediscovery of Maligne Lake and, later, her highly regarded book "Old Indian Trails of the Canadian Rockies," published in 1911 and now part of the Mountain Classics Collection from Rocky Mountain Books. Mary eventually settled in Banff and married her handsome young guide, Billy Warren. Since her death in 1939, her extraordinary accomplishments continue to inspire people-particularly women -to follow their dreams. This latest printing of Janice Sanford Beck's bestselling biography of Mary Schaffer Warren features new information based on correspondence between Schaffer and her friend and lawyer, George Vaux Jr., that was recently acquired by the Whyte Museum in Banff. ...Show more

Legs on Everest by Mark Inglis

$14.00 NZD

Category: Mountaineering | Reading Level: good

In May 2006 Mark Inglis made the front page yet again. This time it was for achieving his long-held dream of making it to the summit of Mt Everest. But once again his achievement was not without controversy, as it soon became known that his climbing party had passed a dying man on its way, and continued to the summit. The media frenzy that followed contained extremes of both criticism and support for the double amputee.This is the story of Mark's climb to the top of the world. First published 2006. ...Show more

Dog in the Snow: The Story of the Middle East Ski School by James Riddell

$35.00 NZD

Category: Mountaineering | Reading Level: near fine

He was an Alsatian called Rex, who lived among the snows of the mountains of Lebanon and Syria. When the author first met him, in November 1941, Rex belonged to a Bishop of the Maronite Church. Rec disliked strangers, but James Riddell proved an exception. The dog became his devoted companion at the new ly-formed ski instruction school which the author was appointed to command. Rex was a great favourite with the troops who came to the school from all regiments and nations - Australians, New Zealanders, Greeks, Gurkhas, and British. This is Rex's story and theirs. Dog in the Snow is an informative book about an almost unknown war-time activity, written with great charm and humour. All who love animals, and particularly those who can understand the fascination of skiing, will delight in the book. ...Show more

Into The Silence : The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest by Wade Davis

$16.00 NZD

Category: Mountaineering | Reading Level: very good

A monumental work of history, biography and adventure - the First World War, Mallory and Mount Everest. For Mallory as for all of his generation, death was but 'a frail barrier that men crossed, smiling and gallant, every day'. As climbers they accepted a degree of risk unimaginable before the war. What mattered now was how one lived, and the moments of being alive. While the quest for Mount Everest may have begun as a grand imperial gesture, it ended as a mission of revival for a country and a lost generation bled white by war. In a monumental work of history and adventure, Davis asks not whether George Mallory was the first to reach the summit of Everest, but rather why he kept climbing on that fateful day. ...Show more

Annapurna: The First Conquest of an 8000- Metre Peak by Maurice Herzog

$12.00 NZD

Category: Mountaineering | Reading Level: very good

'After being swept off his feet by an avalanche and left dangling by a rope around his neck, Herzog began to pass water, violently and uncontrollably.' Your reaction may be only slightly less extreme as you move from one nail-biting moment to the next in this wonderful 1952 tale of triumph and frostb ite. Outside this is the enthralling account, by the leader of the French expedition, of the first conquest of Annapurna - at that time, and at more than 8000 metres, the highest mountain ever climbed. The 26 plates also provide a remarkable photographic record of the adventure. ...Show more

Unclimbed New Zealand

$30.00 NZD

Category: Mountaineering | Reading Level: good

Dingle: Discovering the Sense in Adventure by Graeme Dingle

$15.00 NZD

Category: Mountaineering | Reading Level: very good

Dingle is the autobiography of Graeme Dingle. It is the story of how a scared, painfully skinny boy turns himself into one of New Zealand's greatest adventurers, capable of the hardest climbs in the world. But it is also the story of how a man realises that for his life to truly have meaning, it needs t o include service to others. The book begins with Graeme Dingle's early forays into the North Island ranges and his subsequent development in the Southern Alps into a gifted and driven mountaineer. It then charts many of his remarkable achievements during a lifetime of adventuring. These include being the first to climb all of the European Alps' North Faces (such as the Eiger and the Matterhorn) in one season; the first traverse of New Zealand's Southern Alps (in winter); a range of Himalayan expeditions and a year-long traverse of the Himalayas; and a two-year odyssey to circumnavigate the Arctic. Running alongside this adventuring life has been Dingle's extraordinary commitment to using the outdoors to help the development of young people. This began with him founding the Sir Edmund Hillary Outdoor Pursuits Centre in the Central North Island and has culminated with the hugely successful national youth development programme, Project K. Dingle is the story of a great New Zealander, whose inspirational commitment to the welfare of our young people has been matched by a remarkable record as a mountaineer and adventurer. First published October 2005. ...Show more