cover image Everest: Reflections from the Top

Everest: Reflections from the Top

Christine Gee. Rider, $15.95 (141pp) ISBN 978-1-84413-052-8

In his introduction, Weare, co-director of the Australian Himalayan Foundation, explains,""It is not until you are practically at the base of Everest that her true dimensions are revealed."" Those dimensions--at 29,035 feet high, Everest is the highest point on Earth--have long tempted (and daunted) climbers, and this compact book shares the sentiments of some who reached the mountain's peak. In alphabetical order, each climber taking one page, they recount the big moment. When Major (ret.) H. P. S. Ahluwalia made it to the peak in 1965, his feeling was,""Thank God, it's all over."" As Stacy Allison, the first American woman to climb Everest, recalls,""the summit experience was ephemeral and gone in an hour... but the climb itself is in the marrow of my bones."" Kaji Sherpa, who ascended Everest in record time, says,""On the summit I am always very relaxed and happy."" These musings, which vary from simply joyful to oddly perplexing, are eye-opening in their ability to portray the different reasons people choose to take on the challenge--and, since 2003 marks the 50th anniversary of the mountain's first summit by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, more readers may be on the lookout for titles like this.