The Will to Climb, Ed Viesturs
The Will to Climb, Ed Viesturs
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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

Narrator: Fred Sanders

Unabridged: 10 hr 41 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/04/2011


Synopsis

The bestselling author of No Shortcuts to the Top and K2 chronicles his three attempts to climb the world's tenth-highest and statistically deadliest peak, Annapurna in the Himalaya, while exploring the dramatic and tragic history of others who have made -- or attempted – the ascent, and what these exploits teach us about facing life's greatest challenges.
            As a high school student in the flatlands of Rockford, Illinois, where the highest objects on the horizon were water towers, 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 14 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 brings 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 he ponders what Annapurna reveals about some of our most fundamental moral and spiritual questions--questions, he believe, that we need to answer to lead our lives well.
 
"Of all fourteen of the world's highest mountains, which I climbed between 1989 and 2005," writes Viesturs, "the one that came the closest to defeating my best efforts was Annapurna.” Although it was the first 8,000-meter peak to be climbed,  Annapurna is not as well known as the world's highest mountain, Everest, or second highest, K2. But as Viesturs argues, Annapurna, while not technically the most difficult of the 8,000ers, is the most daunting because it has no route--no ridge or face on any side of the mountain--that is relatively free of what climbers call "objective danger"—the threat of avalanches, above all, but also of collapsing seracs (huge ice blocks), falling rocks, and crevasses. Since its first ascent in 1950, Annapurna has been climbed by more than 130 people, but 53 have died trying. This high fatality rate makes Annapurna the most dangerous of the 8,000-meter peaks.
Viesturs and co-author David Roberts chronicle Ed's three attempts to climb Annapurna, as well as the attempts of others, from the two French climbers who made the landmark first ascent of Annapurna on June 3, 1950, through the daring and tragic campaigns of such world-class mountaineers as Reinhold Messner and Anatoli Boukreev. Viesturs's accounts and analyses of these extraordinary adventures serve as a point of departure for his exploration of themes vividly illustrated by Annapurna expeditions, including obsession and commitment, fear and fulfillment, failure and triumph--issues that have been neglected in the otherwise very rich literature of mountaineering, and that can inform the lives and actions of everyone.

About The Author

In May 2005 Ed Viesturs became the first American to ascend all fourteen of the world's 8,000-meter peaks. He lives in Bainbridge Island, Washington, with his wife and three children. He still climbs and seeks out new adventures. 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.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Alexa on February 20, 2022

This one is neck and neck with Ed's K2 book--I read them back to back and enjoyed both much more than The Mountain, his Everest book. I wanted to read this one because there's a massive canon on Everest and K2, but now I want to know more about all the other 8,000 meter peaks, especially those that......more

Goodreads review by Maria on April 19, 2025

I like to read about Ed’s adventures. He has an easy writing style and is very careful with his opinions of other climbers, letting his readers decide.......more

Goodreads review by Erika on August 20, 2012

I liked No Shortcuts better. I will always read Viesteurs, and his stories inspire me to get back out there and go up a glacier, but this was less a story about his own climb. No Shortcuts tells Ed's Annapurna climb stories more succinctly and clearly than this does. This is a rambling, wonderfully......more

Goodreads review by Heidi on February 02, 2012

Another mountaineering book--I'm fascinated by what drives these people, although I have no desire to climb any mountains myself. Ed Viesturs relives his own journey up Annapurna (the mountain with the highest death rate of all the mountains above 8000 meters) and describes other noteworthy expediti......more

Goodreads review by Vidhya on December 03, 2022

This is an amazing book written by Ed Viesturs and David Roberts. Not only does Ed talk about his account of Annapurna, but about 80% of the book is dedicated to talking in depths about other expeditions on Annapurna and through different routes. The emotions are described as raw as one could. The c......more


Quotes

The Will to Climb captures the essence and spirit of the great sport of mountaineering. For anyone who loves the outdoors and for those who admire the will of mankind, this book is a must-read.”Tod Leiweke, CEO, Tampa Bay Lightning

“A detailed, nicely told account of a man’s endurance and perseverance in achieving a singular goal.”—Publishers Weekly