No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World's 14 Highest Peaks
by Ed Viesturs, David Roberts
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Book Summary Information
Author: David Roberts, Ed ViestursEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2007-11-27
ISBN: 0767924711
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: Broadway
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780767924719
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Book Reviews of No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World's 14 Highest Peaks
Book Review: ESSENTIAL CLIMBER LORE
Summary: 4 Stars
Anyone who has lived out of a pack for a few days, bagged a few peaks,
and taken a few roped chances just for a visceral, unambiguous sense of
accomplishment -and a great view- will get a lot out of Ed's book.
Krakauer, Simpson, Breshears, Messner, etc have all taken us with them on a few
armchair climbing trips, too, but Mr Viesturs is something different. As I read
this book and thumbed ahead (or back) to the pics, or looked at the Google
images of him, I kept thinking "The Last Boy Scout" in spite of myself. His morals and
manners, his dedication and his professionalism, his single-minded pursuit
of mountaineering while banging out a veterinary degree, all make me jealous -
also in spite of myself.
As we learn in the book, a big part of his secret is that he was born with
a physiology that is superior for hard work in thin air. Mind, spirit and lung
capacity all mesh at a high level in Viesturs, and, along with his "compartmentalized"
orientation while on the mountain, still create a human guy that European climbers
admire as an example of their highest image of Americans.
The whole lucky package seems unfair; to grow up wanting to climb so badly, and
then to be gifted with the lung liters and oxygen take-up to match.
I would like to know more about the whole sponsorship thing - how it really plays
out among 'regular' climbers on the mountain, and how it has modified Mr Viesturs'
approach to climbing, and to other climbers(and they to him). (There are a couple
stealth plugs for Mountain Hardware tents in the book)But you do get the
sense that he's not just a shill that gets off on plastering himself with logos -
his direct-thinking approach just found the best way to facilitate his heart's desire,
and it seems the standards he holds himself to are high enough to allow him to do things
his way, without having to knuckle under to commercial pressure. The sponsors are
jumping on Ed's bandwagon, not the other way around. Through the light commercial
haze surrounding Ed Viesturs, I can see a man to admire, and to emulate as best I can.
Summary of No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World's 14 Highest Peaks
This gripping and triumphant memoir follows a living legend of extreme mountaineering as he makes his assault on history, one 8,000-meter summit at a time.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.
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