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Conquistadors of the Useless
- From the Alps to Annapurna
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 15 hrs and 16 mins
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Beyond the Mountain
- Written by: Steve House, Reinhold Messner - foreword
- Narrated by: Steve House
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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What does it take to be one of the world's best high-altitude mountain climbers? A lot of fundraising; traveling in some of the world's most dangerous countries; enduring cold bivouacs, searing lungs, and a cloudy mind when you can least afford one. It means learning the hard lessons the mountains teach. Steve House built his reputation on ascents throughout the Alps, Canada, Alaska, the Karakoram, and the Himalaya that have expanded possibilities of style, speed, and difficulty.
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Excellent listen
- By U. Javed on 2019-01-01
Written by: Steve House, and others
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Life Lived Wild
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- Written by: Rick Ridgeway
- Narrated by: Rick Ridgeway
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
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At the beginning of his memoir Life Lived Wild: Adventures at the Edge of the Map, Rick Ridgeway tells us that if you add up all his many expeditions, he’s spent over five years of his life sleeping in tents: “And most of that in small tents pitched in the world’s most remote regions.” It’s not a boast so much as an explanation. Whether at elevation or raising a family back at sea level, those years taught him, he writes, “to distinguish matters of consequence from matters of inconsequence.” He leaves it to his listeners to do the final sort of which is which.
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What an adventure!
- By Brendan Brown on 2023-03-08
Written by: Rick Ridgeway
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Beyond Possible
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An SBS Gurkha soldier's account of how his tough Nepali upbringing and the lessons learned in his army life enabled his record-breaking conquest of all 14 of the world's 8,000m peaks in under seven months. What happens when ambition meets limitless imagination? Enter Project Possible: a seemingly unreachable goal to climb all 14 'death zone' mountains in record time. The previous record was seven years, 10 months and six days. I did it in six months.
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Amazing story of Survival
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Written by: Nimsdai Purja
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Training for the New Alpinism
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- Written by: Steve House, Scott Johnston, Mark Twight - foreword
- Narrated by: Roger Wayne
- Length: 13 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Steve House, world-class climber and Patagonia ambassador, and Scott Johnston, coach of US national champions and World Cup Nordic skiers, translate training theory into practice to allow you to coach yourself to any mountaineering goal. Applying training practices from other endurance sports, House and Johnston demonstrate that following a carefully designed regimen is as effective for alpinism as it is for any other endurance sport and leads to better performance. They deliver detailed instruction on how to plan and execute training tailored to your individual circumstances.
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a gem of a book
- By mvrekic on 2021-07-16
Written by: Steve House, and others
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The Mountain of My Fear and Deborah
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- Written by: David Roberts, Jon Krakauer - foreword
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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The publication of The Mountain of My Fear in 1968 and Deborah in 1970 changed the face of the mountaineering narrative. Now these two classic expedition narratives by acclaimed writer David Roberts are together again in one volume for a new generation of readers.
Written by: David Roberts, and others
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The World Beneath Their Feet
- Mountaineering, Madness, and the Deadly Race to Summit the Himalayas
- Written by: Scott Ellsworth
- Narrated by: Scott Ellsworth
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
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While tension steadily rose between European powers in the 1930s, a different kind of battle was raging across the Himalayas. Contingents from Great Britain, Nazi Germany, and the United States had set up rival camps at the base of the mountains, all hoping to become recognized as the fastest, strongest, and bravest climbers in the world. Climbing the Himalayas was the Greatest Generation's moonshot - one shrouded in the onset of war, interrupted by it, and then fully accomplished.
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Excellent account of the race to conquer Everest!
- By Carlos Delaney on 2022-07-14
Written by: Scott Ellsworth
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Beyond the Mountain
- Written by: Steve House, Reinhold Messner - foreword
- Narrated by: Steve House
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What does it take to be one of the world's best high-altitude mountain climbers? A lot of fundraising; traveling in some of the world's most dangerous countries; enduring cold bivouacs, searing lungs, and a cloudy mind when you can least afford one. It means learning the hard lessons the mountains teach. Steve House built his reputation on ascents throughout the Alps, Canada, Alaska, the Karakoram, and the Himalaya that have expanded possibilities of style, speed, and difficulty.
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Excellent listen
- By U. Javed on 2019-01-01
Written by: Steve House, and others
-
Life Lived Wild
- Adventures at the Edge of the Map (Patagonia)
- Written by: Rick Ridgeway
- Narrated by: Rick Ridgeway
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the beginning of his memoir Life Lived Wild: Adventures at the Edge of the Map, Rick Ridgeway tells us that if you add up all his many expeditions, he’s spent over five years of his life sleeping in tents: “And most of that in small tents pitched in the world’s most remote regions.” It’s not a boast so much as an explanation. Whether at elevation or raising a family back at sea level, those years taught him, he writes, “to distinguish matters of consequence from matters of inconsequence.” He leaves it to his listeners to do the final sort of which is which.
-
-
What an adventure!
- By Brendan Brown on 2023-03-08
Written by: Rick Ridgeway
-
Beyond Possible
- The man and the mindset that summitted K2 in winter
- Written by: Nimsdai Purja
- Narrated by: Elliot Fitzpatrick
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An SBS Gurkha soldier's account of how his tough Nepali upbringing and the lessons learned in his army life enabled his record-breaking conquest of all 14 of the world's 8,000m peaks in under seven months. What happens when ambition meets limitless imagination? Enter Project Possible: a seemingly unreachable goal to climb all 14 'death zone' mountains in record time. The previous record was seven years, 10 months and six days. I did it in six months.
-
-
Amazing story of Survival
- By Tony on 2023-04-09
Written by: Nimsdai Purja
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Training for the New Alpinism
- A Manual for the Climber as Athlete
- Written by: Steve House, Scott Johnston, Mark Twight - foreword
- Narrated by: Roger Wayne
- Length: 13 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Steve House, world-class climber and Patagonia ambassador, and Scott Johnston, coach of US national champions and World Cup Nordic skiers, translate training theory into practice to allow you to coach yourself to any mountaineering goal. Applying training practices from other endurance sports, House and Johnston demonstrate that following a carefully designed regimen is as effective for alpinism as it is for any other endurance sport and leads to better performance. They deliver detailed instruction on how to plan and execute training tailored to your individual circumstances.
-
-
a gem of a book
- By mvrekic on 2021-07-16
Written by: Steve House, and others
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The Mountain of My Fear and Deborah
- Two Mountaineering Classics
- Written by: David Roberts, Jon Krakauer - foreword
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The publication of The Mountain of My Fear in 1968 and Deborah in 1970 changed the face of the mountaineering narrative. Now these two classic expedition narratives by acclaimed writer David Roberts are together again in one volume for a new generation of readers.
Written by: David Roberts, and others
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The World Beneath Their Feet
- Mountaineering, Madness, and the Deadly Race to Summit the Himalayas
- Written by: Scott Ellsworth
- Narrated by: Scott Ellsworth
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While tension steadily rose between European powers in the 1930s, a different kind of battle was raging across the Himalayas. Contingents from Great Britain, Nazi Germany, and the United States had set up rival camps at the base of the mountains, all hoping to become recognized as the fastest, strongest, and bravest climbers in the world. Climbing the Himalayas was the Greatest Generation's moonshot - one shrouded in the onset of war, interrupted by it, and then fully accomplished.
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Excellent account of the race to conquer Everest!
- By Carlos Delaney on 2022-07-14
Written by: Scott Ellsworth
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Moments of Doubt and Other Mountaineering Writings
- Written by: David Roberts, Royal Robbins - foreword
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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This collection of 20 essays and articles on mountaineering and adventure by David Roberts, selected from the published works of two decades, showcases one of the most highly regarded writers in the field. The articles are composed of three types: Adventures (Roberts' own climbs and outings), Profiles (other adventurers), and Reflections (meditative essays about the meaning of the whole business). Roberts ranges the globe (Africa, Alaska, New Guinea) and introduces unique personalities (Reinhold Messner, John Roskelly, Don Sheldon).
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Pretty good
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Written by: David Roberts, and others
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Savage Arena
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- Narrated by: Stewart Crank
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Joe Tasker lies, struck down by illness, in a damp, bug-infested room in the Himalaya, wondering if he will be well enough to climb Dunagiri, his first venture to the "big" mountains. One of Britain’s foremost mountaineers and a pioneer of lightweight climbing, he is about to attempt one of the first true "Alpine-style" climbs in the Greater Ranges. The Dunagiri attempt forms part of Tasker’s striking tale of adventure in the savage arena of the mountains.
Written by: Joe Tasker
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The Next Everest
- Surviving the Mountain's Deadliest Day and Finding the Resilience to Climb Again
- Written by: Jim Davidson
- Narrated by: Jim Davidson, Tim Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins
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On April 25, 2015, Jim Davidson was climbing Mount Everest when a 7.8 magnitude earthquake released avalanches all around him and his team, destroying their only escape route and trapping them at nearly 20,000 feet. It was the largest earthquake in Nepal in 81 years and killed about 8,900 people. That day also became the deadliest in the history of Everest, with 18 people losing their lives on the mountain.
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Great success story
- By Shaun Clark on 2022-12-18
Written by: Jim Davidson
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Mountains of the Mind
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- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
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Combining accounts of legendary mountain ascents with vivid descriptions of his own forays into wild, high landscapes, Robert Macfarlane reveals how the mystery of the world's highest places has come to grip the Western imagination - and perennially draws legions of adventurers up the most perilous slopes. His story begins three centuries ago, when mountains were feared as the forbidding abodes of dragons and other mysterious beasts.
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Mesmerizing story
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Vertical Mind
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- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
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In Vertical Mind, Don McGrath and Jeff Elison teach rock climbers how to improve their mental game so they can climb better and have more fun. They teach how the latest research in brain science and psychology can help you retrain your mind and body for higher levels of rock climbing performance, while also demonstrating how to train and overcome fears and anxiety that hold you back. Finally, they teach climbing partners how to engage in co-creative coaching and help each other improve as climbers.
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how did I make it through that?
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Written by: Don McGrath PhD, and others
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On January 14, 2015, Tommy Caldwell, along with his partner, Kevin Jorgeson, summited what is widely regarded as the hardest climb in history - Yosemite’s nearly vertical 3,000-foot Dawn Wall, after 19 days on the route. This engrossing memoir chronicles the journey of a boy with a fanatical mountain-guide father who was determined to instill toughness in his son to a teen whose obsessive nature drove him to the top of the sport-climbing circuit.
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Captivating
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K2
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At 28,251 feet, the world's second-tallest mountain, K2 thrusts skyward out of the Karakoram Range of northern Pakistan. Climbers regard it as the ultimate achievement in mountaineering, with good reason. Four times as deadly as Everest, K2 has claimed the lives of seventy-seven climbers since 1954. In August 2008 eleven climbers died in a single thirty-six-hour period on K2–the worst single-event tragedy in the mountain's history and the second-worst in the long chronicle of mountaineering in the Himalaya and Karakoram ranges.
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Humble Brags!
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Epic
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- Narrated by: uncredited
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"Epic" is a mountaineering term that evokes a sense of treacherous disaster. The climb that went wrong: fighting blinding snowstorms and horrific avalanches; days spent tentbound running low on food, water, and oxygen; surviving broken bones and shattered spirits. This program offers a collection of the most memorable accounts of legend-making expeditions to the world's most famous peaks, often in the worst possible conditions.
Written by: Greg Child, and others
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Touching the Void
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Joe Simpson, with just his partner, Simon Yates, tackled the unclimbed West Face of the remote 21,000-foot Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes in June of 1995. But before they reached the summit, disaster struck. A few days later, Simon staggered into Base Camp, exhausted and frostbitten, to tell their non-climbing companion that Joe was dead. For three days he wrestled with guilt as they prepared to return home. Then a cry in the night took them out with torches, where they found Joe, badly injured.
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Amazing, wish I knew more.
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Written by: Joe Simpson
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Let My People Go Surfing
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In his long-awaited memoir, Yvon Chouinard - legendary climber, businessman, environmentalist, and founder of Patagonia, Inc. - shares the persistence and courage that have gone into being head of one of the most respected and environmentally responsible companies on earth. From his youth as the son of a French Canadian blacksmith to the thrilling, ambitious climbing expeditions that inspired his innovative designs for the sport's equipment.
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So, SO good
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One of the inspirations for the major motion picture Everest, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Keira Knightley. This is the true story of a 24-hour period on Everest when members of three separate expeditions were caught in a storm and faced a battle against hurricane-force winds, exposure, and the effects of altitude, which ended the worst single-season death toll in the peak's history.
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Amazing
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Kiss or Kill
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- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
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Mark Twight is a BANFF award-winner, an extreme climber, an extreme writer, and an extreme personality. No matter what he's doing, Mark Twight takes a definite, and often controversial , stand. Anyone who knows climbing knows Twight's name, and anyone who knows Twight's name will want to listen to this audiobook. Each story is told in Twight's taut, in-your-face style. Brand-new epilogues bring each piece full circle, providing updated information and fresh, hindsight perspectives.
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Raw
- By Sam on 2019-02-07
Written by: Mark Twight
Publisher's Summary
Frenchman Lionel Terray is one of mountaineering history's greatest alpinists, and his autobiography, Conquistadors of the Useless, stands among the "100 Greatest Adventure Books of All Time", according to National Geographic Adventure magazine. Following World War II, when France desperately needed successes to heal its wounds, Terray emerged as a national hero, conquering summits atop the planet's highest mountains.
This biography of Lionel Terry is filled with first-time feats and acts of bravery in the face of unspeakable odds. He climbed with legends such as Maurice Herzog, Gaston Rebuffat, and Louis Lachenal. He made first ascents in the Alps, Alaska, the Andes, and the Himalaya. Terray's gripping story captures the energy of an optimistic world shaking off the restraints of war and austerity. It's a mountaineering classic.
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What listeners say about Conquistadors of the Useless
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Dan
- 2023-10-13
Good story telling.
The book did have me zone in and out. However the stories told were great to listen to.
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- marco
- 2023-05-25
New favorite book
There is just something so motivating and funny in the way everything is understated
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- Spencer S.
- 2022-07-05
A must-read for every student of climbing
Amazing! Basically the archetype for every mountaineering and climbing book that's been written since.
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- L. A. P. Brunello
- 2022-01-12
a classic
one of my all time favorite mountaineering novels. with fabulous narration. 10 put of 10 would recommend
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- Stephen
- 2021-05-23
Conquistadors of the Useless
This is something of a cult classic. First published in French in 1961, it was for a long time not available in English, and then after translation it went out of print and copies were going for over $1000. Helped by the fact it was included in the National Geographic Outdoor list. Not too long after 1961, he died on a climbing trip. The book then is a sort of scope into the mind of a soon to be dead man who struggled with why he climbed, saw so many others die, almost died many times. But it is not morbid, Terray is full of life, such are the sharp contrasts of this sport, or a way of life.
Terray came of age when climbing transitioned from fragile hemp rope and clod-hopper nail boots to modern technology and techniques, as such, he was first ascent to many climbs or nearly so. They were superstars in the days after the war doing things people thought insane and impossible, the book gives a sense of the fraternity of climbers in the Alps during the 40s and 50s. Remember 'The Eiger Sanction'? Well that sort of time period and place is what this concerns but for real. This is a long book and the early sections are not so great, but once he started on the Big Walls it takes off. The interlude of WWII is interesting as he sneaks up on Germans from mountain tops they didn't think anyone could climb, only to have his gun freeze! So many stories. This is a must read for climbers, NatGeo completionists, or really anyone who likes good stories, Terray is a likeable, down to earth character,
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- Rachel
- 2023-10-30
Superb
Great adventure book with details and history. I will listen to it a second time.
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- Julie B
- 2023-08-28
A must read for all mountaineers
Lionel Terray and many of his companions set a new standard for mountaineering and alpine climbing that directed the course of its history to where it is today. This is an interesting look into the life of this pioneer.
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- Anonymous User
- 2023-06-04
Fantastic reading & narrative
What a wonderful book. It was complimented by the reader. It is long but very worthy. If anything I wanted more, specifically on his ascents in the Andes. I did think the backstory took up too much time, but it was a wonderful story.
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- Dad95
- 2023-03-29
Worth the time
I actually liked the nonclimbing part just as much or better than the climbing part. His early life and experiences trying to start a farm are pretty fascinating and a glimpse into the time around the world war. I really love this narrator.
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- lindaleh
- 2022-05-13
Awe Inspiring masterpiece. Brilliant Reading.
If you only read one mountaineering book in a lifetime, this is the the one.
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- Rian
- 2021-08-27
Adventure and history perfectly united
This book has a legendary reputation, and after listening to this version, I truly understand why. The account of Terray and Lachenal making the second accent of the Eigerwand is beyond epic; I was on the edge of my seat. Highly recommended.
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