No Shortcuts to the Top

Author: Ed Viesturs
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0767926412
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 378

Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • This gripping and triumphant memoir from the author of The Mountain follows a living legend of extreme mountaineering as he makes his assault on history, one 8,000-meter summit at a time. “From the drama of the peaks, to the struggle of making a living as a professional climber, to the basic how-tos of life at 26,000 feet, No Shortcuts to the Top is fascinating reading.”—Aron Ralston, author of Between a Rock and a Hard Place and subject of the film 127 Hours 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. A preternaturally cautious climber who once turned back 300 feet from the top of Everest but who would not shrink from a peak (Annapurna) known to claim the life of one climber for every two who reached its summit, 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. In addition to the raw excitement of Viesturs’s odyssey, No Shortcuts to the Top is leavened with many funny moments revealing the camaraderie between climbers. It 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.

There Are No Shortcuts

Author: Rafe Esquith
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0307491803
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Book Description
Year after year, Rafe Esquith’s fifth-grade students excel. They read passionately, far above their grade level; tackle algebra; and stage Shakespeare so professionally that they often wow the great Shakespearen actor himself, Sir Ian McKellen. Yet Esquith teaches at an L.A. innercity school known as the Jungle, where few of his students speak English at home, and many are from poor or troubled families. What’s his winning recipe? A diet of intensive learning mixed with a lot of kindness and fun. His kids attend class from 6:30 A.M. until well after 4:00 P.M., right through most of their vacations. They take field trips to Europe and Yosemite. They play rock and roll. Mediocrity has no place in their classroom. And the results follow them for life, as they go on to colleges such as Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford. Possessed by a fierce idealism, Esquith works even harder than his students. As an outspoken maverick of public education (his heroes include Huck Finn and Atticus Finch), he admits to significant mistakes and heated fights with administrators and colleagues. We all—teachers, parents, citizens—have much to learn from his candor and uncompromising vision.

K2

Author: Ed Viesturs
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0767932609
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 354

Book Description
A thrilling chronicle of the tragedy-ridden history of climbing the world's most difficult and unpredictable mountain, by the bestselling authors of The Mountain and No Shortcuts to the Top “Gripping . . . reveals a good deal about the rarefied noble-gonzo world of high-altitude mountaineering.”—The New York Times Ed Viesturs, one of the world's premier high-altitude mountaineers, explores the remarkable history of K2 and of those who have attempted to conquer it. At the same time, he probes the mountain's most memorable sagas in order to illustrate lessons about the fundamental questions mountaineering raises—questions of risk, ambition, loyalty to one's teammates, self-sacrifice, and the price of glory. Viesturs knows the mountain firsthand. He and renowned alpinist Scott Fischer climbed it in 1992 and got caught in an avalanche that sent them sliding to almost certain death before Ed managed to get into a self-arrest position with his ice ax and stop both his fall and Scott's. Focusing on seven of the mountain's most dramatic campaigns, from his own troubled ascent to the 2008 tragedy, Viesturs crafts an edge-of-your-seat narrative that climbers and armchair travelers alike will find unforgettably compelling. With photographs from Viesturs's personal collection and from historical sources, this is the definitive account of the world's ultimate mountain, and of the lessons that can be gleaned from struggling toward its elusive summit.

No Shortcuts

Author: Jane McAlevey
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019062471X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Book Description
"An examination of strategies for effective organizing"--

The Mountain

Author: Ed Viesturs
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 145169475X
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Book Description
In national bestseller The Mountain, world-renowned climber and bestselling author Ed Viesturs and cowriter David Roberts paint a vivid portrait of obsession, dedication, and human achievement in a true love letter to the world’s highest peak. In The Mountain, veteran world-class climber and bestselling author Ed Viesturs—the only American to have climbed all fourteen of the world’s 8,000-meter peaks—trains his sights on Mount Everest in richly detailed accounts of expeditions that are by turns personal, harrowing, deadly, and inspiring. The highest mountain on earth, Everest remains the ultimate goal for serious high-altitude climbers. Viesturs has gone on eleven expeditions to Everest, spending more than two years of his life on the mountain and reaching the summit seven times. No climber today is better poised to survey Everest’s various ascents—both personal and historic. Viesturs sheds light on the fate of Mallory and Irvine, whose 1924 disappearance just 800 feet from the summit remains one of mountaineering’s greatest mysteries, as well as the multiply tragic last days of Rob Hall and Scott Fischer in 1996, the stuff of which Into Thin Air was made. Informed by the experience of one who has truly been there, The Mountain affords a rare glimpse into that place on earth where Heraclitus’s maxim—“Character is destiny”—is proved time and again.

The Will to Climb

Author: Ed Viesturs
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307720438
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 310

Book Description
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.

There Are No Shortcuts

Author: Ernie Bono
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780976228431
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 164

Book Description

No Shortcuts to Power

Author: Anne Marie Goetz
Publisher: Zed Books
ISBN: 9781842771471
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 260

Book Description
Whatever other shortcomings of representative democracy may be apparent in our world today, one issue that clearly remains only partially resolved is the participation and policy impact of one half of the population--women. This comparative study examines this issue in the context of two African countries, South Africa and Uganda, both of which have accomplished much more at the level of women's political participation than most African or indeed other countries.

No Shortcuts to Progress

Author: Goran Hyden
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520048706
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 242

Book Description
Textbook proceeding to a comparison of political development and development administration in Africa - examines the failure of capital flow, technology transfer and development aid to bring about economic and social development; emphasizes the need for decentralization, revival of local government, political participation, promotion of nongovernmental organizations and local level institution building and an indigenous management development style; considers the role of public enterprise. References.

On the Ridge Between Life and Death

Author: David Roberts
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416548769
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 436

Book Description
What compels mountain climbers to take the risks that they do? Is it the thrill in the physical accomplishment, in managing to defy the odds, or both -- and why do they continue to do what they do in the face of such great danger? In On the Ridge Between Life and Death, David Roberts confronts these questions head-on as he recounts the exhilarating highs and desperate lows of his climbing career. By the time he was twenty-two, Roberts had already been involved in three fatal mountain climbing accidents and had escaped death himself by the sheerest of luck. And yet, as he acknowledges, few things have brought him more joy than climbing. In a famous essay on the subject written more than twenty years ago, Roberts judged climbing to be "worth the risk." He continues to climb to this day, and several of his challenging routes in Alaska have never been climbed since. But in reassessing the emotional costs to himself and to loved ones, he reaches a different conclusion, one that is sure to cause controversy not only in climbing circles, but among adventurers of all kinds. Candid and unflinching, On the Ridge Between Life and Death is a compelling examination of the risks we take in order to feel more alive.