No Shortcuts to the Top:
Climbing the World’s 14 Highest Peaks

by Ed Viesturs, with David Roberts
Broadway Books, 2006, ISBN 9780767924719;
372 pages, paperback.

Regions of the Heart:
The Triumph and Tragedy of Alison Hargreaves

by David Rose and Ed Douglas
Penguin, 2000, ISBN 0140286748;
289 pages, paperback.

These two books share a common theme, both being descriptions of the lives of high-achieving mountaineers. Each provides a fascinating insight into what motivates those at the top end of our sport and both are well written and highly recommended. The driving force behind these two climbers is/was sufficiently different to make these two books a fascinating complementary read.

Ed Viesturs, based in Washington State, became a seasonal mountain guide on Mount Rainier even before completing his tertiary education. After qualifying as a veterinarian he turned his back on what would have been a lucrative and safe career to become America’s leading high altitude mountaineer and subsequently a motivational lecturer.  This autobiographical book describes how he succeeded in climbing all 14 of the 8,000 metre peaks without using oxygen. Amongst many fascinating chapters is one that describes his role on the Everest IMAX film expedition that took place in 1996, covering much of the same ground that was described so vividly in John Krakauer’s book ‘Into Thin Air’, when a record number of mountaineers died on Everest. Several of the 8,000 metre peaks he climbed more than once, often guiding clients, stepping foot on these summits a total of 20 times; more tellingly, he turned back from 8,000 metre summit attempts on no fewer than 10 other occasions when the risks became too high, sharing with me the opinion that reaching the summit is optional, returning safely is mandatory. The book also covers some of his own close calls, his involvement in rescues, and errors of judgement on the part of other climbers.

Alison Hargreaves, with whom I once dined, left copious diaries in which she recorded what she did and what she thought. As a result, it was easily possible for this moving account of her life as a professional mountaineer to be compiled. The book describes how she became a leading UK rock climber before solo climbing the 6 classic Alpine north faces and then turning her attention to Mount Everest. Eschewing the South Col route which requires nothing more in terms of technical climbing skill than the ability to walk in crampons, she soloed it without oxygen from the north, completely unsupported by sherpas or colleagues, setting up all of her own high-level camps. Her final conquest was to be a repeat of this climbing style on K2. Although she reached the summit successfully, she was overtaken by storm force winds on her way down and was blown from the mountain to her death. Motivated by a strong desire never to return to complete such a difficult mountain and a wish to get home to her children as soon as possible, she had pressed on to the summit ignoring clear signs of the impending  storm, implying that she was suffering from ‘push-on-itis’, as have so many other climbers in the Himalayas. Unfortunately, her truly magnificent mountaineering achievements were immediately overshadowed by public condemnation of her for leaving her young children motherless; this sympathetic biography places this unfair criticism into its proper perspective.

by Mel Owen