- From This Day Forward
The chapter begins with a description of a typical summit climb on Mt. Rainier as the author is working his first summer as a climbing guide and living a dream come true; however, the day turns suddenly tragic, evolving into the worst accident in North American mountaineering history. The writer considers his role in the accident, struggles to move forward with his guiding career, and reveals the emotions of this near-death experience.
- Going Home
The author takes the reader on a journey to the summit of Mt. Everest as he guides a single client to the top (twenty years after the Rainier tragedy exposed in chapter 1). It is a day filled with doubt as a storm threatens the success of the ascent. As the author considers the safety of continuing on toward the summit, the author reflects upon others who have sacrificed their lives in the pursuit, but manages to meet the challenge of helping another reach a life-long goal.
- The Broken Promise
The story tells of an unsuccessful attempt to climb Mt. Everest from the south. Climbing to within 300 feet of the summit, the author and his climbing partner Eric Simonson (co-author of Ghosts on Everest, The Search for Mallory and Irvine, and Detectives on Everest: The 2001 Mallory & Irvine Research Expedition) are forced to make a difficult decision: to climb on or turn around. As they retreat to the high camp at the South Col, the remainder of the team continues to climb to the summit successfully, but one climber fails to return, justifying the decision of the author and his partner to retreat. Questions of loyalty, responsibility, decision making, and teamwork are raised and addressed.
- An Ocean of Tears
After many trips to Tanzania to climb Kilimanjaro, the moment presents itself to discuss with a local man his family history at the hands of slave traders, the impact of poaching, and the harvest of ivory, all endeavors representing actions of greed by those who live beyond the borders of East Africa.
- I’ll See You in the Morning
An expedition to a peak named Mercedario in a remote part of Argentina ends in tragedy as one team member doesn’t return. The story tells of the emotional challenges a team faces as it loses one of its own, and exposes, in detail, the physical and psychological challenges of evacuating the body of a large and lifeless climber from the Andes. Following the evacuation, the real challenge begins as the author is questioned by the authorities, faces a challenging situation with the victim’s family, arranges for a cremation of the body, and finally delivers the remains back home.
- A Significant Encounter
Shishapangma is the thirteenth highest peak in the world, and this chapter introduces the reader to the anatomy of a dysfunctional expedition. With the expedition leader forced to leave because of health issues, the author (as climbing leader) is obligated to take the reins of the expedition and challenged with shaping the members into a well-functioning team in pursuit of a common goal: the summit. But the members are filled with distrust, fail when provided an opportunity to succeed and, in the end, retreat in a powerful storm. Searching for a positive spin on the experience, the frustrated author does find value in the expedition as he unexpectedly meets Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to climb Everest. Hillary offers some good-natured advice which the author takes to heart and ultimately puts to use he returns to Nepal just a few months later to climb Everest.
- Fate
Trying to climb a new route on the north face of Mt. Everest ends in near disaster as the author and George Dunn (the current record holder of Mt. Rainier ascents at over 500) attempt to lead the Yellow Band, never before climbed in the spring. A pulled piton sends the author tumbling down the north face, but he is miraculously saved only by the unconventional actions of his climbing partner, a debt he repays to his partner as they make another attempt to climb the mountain.
- The Gift: “Wilson, We Have to Talk,” Kangchenjunga, Part I
This is an account of the first American team-ascent of Kangchenjunga, the third highest peak in the world at 28,162 feet. Six team members climbed to the summit, four without the use of bottled oxygen, including Larry Nielsen (the first American to climb Mt. Everest without oxygen), Ed Viesturs (the first and only American to climb the 14 highest peaks in the world without oxygen), Craig VanHoy (one-time holder of the speed record for climbing Mt. Rainier), and the author. Personalities conflict, climbing gear is missing, weather threatens to compromise the ascent, but in the end, a great mountaineering accomplishment is achieved.
- The Debt: “If I Were a Fortune Teller,” Kangchenjunga, Part II
The story is a follow-up to the previous chapter and the ascent of Kangchenjunga. The account focuses on the author’s experience after climbing to the summit third highest mountain in the world without oxygen as he deals with an illness threatening to change his life. The author reflects upon this experience as he faces the possibility of never being able to climb again.
- The Smile
While en route to climb the stunning peaks of Bolivia’s Cordillera Real, a visit to the San Pedro prison in La Paz provides a glimpse into one of the country’s most violent penitentiaries. Interactions and conversations with the prison’s guards and inmates convey the hardships of living a life behind bars in a third-world country and the prevalence of drugs inside and outside the concrete walls.
- The Patient
A client, who is a physician, refuses to acknowledge that he has pulmonary edema and refuses to quit a climb on one of Mexico’s volcanoes. The story reveals how willing people are to risk their livelihood, and their lives, in pursuit of a mountain summit. The physician challenges the author’s decision to refuse him the opportunity to continue climbing and takes the author on an adventure through the streets of Puebla at midnight in search of a doctor, an x-ray machine, and a professional opinion to put the author on his heels. The physician questions the guide’s expertise in medical matters and refuses to back off from the climb. The story is a tale of denial and selfishness.
- A Strange Bedfellow
In 1991, after two previous unsuccessful Everest expeditions, the author finally finds success but only after spending one aborted attempt early in the expedition with five climbers sharing a two-person tent at 26,000 feet, followed by a second attempt trying to climb to the summit without oxygen only to be turned around in a storm. After spending four days at high camp solo at 26,000 feet, the weather cleared and the author reached the summit alone as the remainder of his team watched through a telescope at Base Camp. All the camps beneath the author had been cleaned from the mountain, and the transportation arranged to deliver the team off the mountain, and towards home, was en route. The author summited at the last possible moment, putting an end to a quest of having spent roughly 300 days trying to climb the north face of Everest over the course of three expeditions.
- A Blind Date
Armed with nothing more than a sketch, scribbled notes, and a photo, this expedition forges its way across the Atacama Desert in hopes of climbing the highest peak in Chile, which is also the second highest peak in South America. Rarely climbed and located in driest desert on Earth, it provides an adventure off the beaten path.
- Leverage
Trapped within the city of La Paz, Bolivia, the military takes the government over by force in one of the bloodiest coups in the country’s history. The author and his climbing partner are subject to house arrest in a city hotel, a perfect location to witness the unravelling of a government and a country as centuries-old cobblestones are unearthed from the city’s streets to build barricades as tanks roll and soldiers mount weapons on nearby rooftops.
- The Confession
This chapter highlights a client who failed to reveal his former difficulties at altitude prior to signing on to attempt Aconcagua, the highest peak in the Western Hemisphere. His secret is a selfish act that jeopardizes his own life and has the potential to endanger the entire expedition. His behavior and choices beg the question of what people are willing to sacrifice in climbing to the summit of a mountain.
- No Place I’d Rather Be
This chapter takes the reader on a journey to Northern Peru in search of a “lost city.” The University of Colorado needs the services of climbers to access a handful of ruins on the high cliffs of a cloud forest that rises above a drainage feeding into the Amazon. The author and Lou Whittaker (leader of the successful 1984 China-Everest Expedition) work side-by-side with university archeologists as discoveries of artifacts, ruins, and skeletons lead the climbers on an expedition filled with mysteries and questions that remain to be answered.
- A Sense of Range
A climbing trip closer to home, the Sawtooth Wilderness of Idaho, provides the impulse to contemplate the natural world, its significance, its endurance, and its evolution.