Since the beginning of time, we have been fascinated with heights. Mount Everest, therefore, is at the tip top of our fascination. In this tale, you call the shots in trying to conquer dizzying heights. Each decision becomes more important than the last as you climb heavenward. Will you make it? Will you fall? Will you survive at all? YOU CHOOSE how this adventure ends.

Journey to the top of the world in this exciting story of adventure and danger. Thrill-seeking readers will meet Tembe, a 16-year-old boy from Nepal who dreams of climbing to the top of Mt. Everest. Told in a compelling narrative style, Mountains: Surviving on Mt. Everest follows Tempe's amazing expedition in 2001 as he and his team braved the bitter cold, thin air, and life-threatening conditions to triumphantly plant their national flag at Everest's soaring summit. As readers follow Tembe's story, they will learn the defining characteristics and features of the world's great mountains, and discover why Mt. Everest, in particular, inspires explorers. Full-color photographs, along with a map, diagram, and timeline will further inform the young adventurer in every student.

A dramatic account of the deadly avalanche on Everest—and a return to reach the summit. 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 eighty-one years and killed nearly 8,900 people. That day also became the deadliest in the history of Everest, with eighteen people losing their lives on the mountain. After spending two unsettling days stranded on Everest, Davidson's team was rescued by helicopter. The experience left him shaken, and despite his thirty-three years of climbing and serving as an expedition leader, he wasn’t sure that he would ever go back. But in the face of risk and uncertainty, he returned in 2017 and finally achieved his dream of reaching the summit. Suspenseful and engrossing, The Next Everest portrays the experience of living through the biggest disaster to ever hit the mountain. Davidson's background in geology and environmental science makes him uniquely qualified to explain why the seismic threats lurking beneath Nepal are even greater today. But this story is not about “conquering” the world’s highest peak. Instead, it reveals how embracing change, challenge, and uncertainty prepares anyone to face their next “Everest” in life.

"Former Navy rescue swimmer Brian Dickinson was roughly 1,000 feet from the summit of Mount Everest ... when his Sherpa became ill and had to turn back, leaving Brian with a difficult decision: should he continue to push for the summit, or head back down the mountain? After carefully weighing the options, Brian decided to continue toward the summit ... Four hours later, Brian solo-summited the highest peak in the world, but the celebration was short-lived ... Suddenly, his vision became blurry, his eyes started to burn, and within seconds, he was rendered almost completely blind"--Amazon.com.

On May 10, 1996, Lene Gammelgaard became the first Scandinavian woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest. But a raging storm and human error conspired to turn triumph into catastrophe. Eight of her team's climbers, including its renowned leader Scott Fischer, perished in a tragedy that would make headlines around the world. In her riveting account, Gammelgaard takes us from her weeks of determined training to the exhilaration of arriving in Nepal to the arduous climb and deadly storm that forced her and her fellow climbers to huddle throughout the night, hoping to stay alive. Gammelgaard also writes movingly of Everest's awesome beauty; of the passion and commitment required to face the daunting challenge of climbing to high altitudes; and of the complex personal relationships forged in the pursuit of such dangerous ventures. Arlene Blum, author of the classic account of women and mountaineering, Annapurna: A Woman's Place, calls Climbing High "an honest and deeply personal account."

With a new preface by the author • As featured in the upcoming motion picture Everest, starring Jason Clarke, Josh Brolin, John Hawkes, Robin Wright, Emily Watson, Keira Knightley, Sam Worthington, and Jake Gyllenhaal “I can tell you that some force within me rejected death at the last moment and then guided me, blind and stumbling—quite literally a dead man walking—into camp and the shaky start of my return to life.” In 1996 Beck Weathers and a climbing team pushed toward the summit of Mount Everest. Then a storm exploded on the mountain, ripping the team to shreds, forcing brave men to scratch and crawl for their lives. Rescuers who reached Weathers saw that he was dying, and left him. Twelve hours later, the inexplicable occurred. Weathers appeared, blinded, gloveless, and caked with ice—walking down the mountain. In this powerful memoir, now featuring a new Preface, Weathers describes not only his escape from hypothermia and the murderous storm that killed eight climbers, but the journey of his life. This is the story of a man’s route to a dangerous sport and a fateful expedition, as well as the road of recovery he has traveled since; of survival in the face of certain death, the reclaiming of a family and a life; and of the most extraordinary adventure of all: finding the courage to say yes when life offers us a second chance. Praise for Left for Dead “Riveting . . . [a] remarkable survival story . . . Left for Dead takes a long, critical look at climbing: Weathers is particularly candid about how the demanding sport altered and strained his relationships.”—USA Today “Ultimately, this engrossing tale depicts the difficulty of a man’s struggle to reform his life.”—Publishers Weekly

“Heart-stopping and relentlessly gripping. Tabor takes us on an odyssey into unfathomable worlds beneath us, and into the hearts of rare explorers who will do anything to get there first.”—Robert Kurson, author of ShadowDivers In 2004, two great scientist-explorers attempted to find the bottom of the world. American Bill Stone took on the vast, deadly Cheve Cave in southern Mexico. Ukrainian Alexander Klimchouk targeted Krubera, a freezing nightmare of a supercave in the war-torn former Soviet republic of Georgia. Both men spent months almost two vertical miles deep, contending with thousand-foot drops, raging whitewater rivers, monstrous waterfalls, mile-long belly crawls, and the psychological horrors produced by weeks in absolute darkness, beyond all hope of rescue. Based on his unprecedented access to logs and journals as well as hours of personal interviews, James Tabor has crafted a thrilling exploration of man’s timeless urge to discover—and of two extraordinary men whose pursuit of greatness led them to the heights of triumph and the depths of tragedy. Blind Descent is an unforgettable addition to the classic literature of true-life adventure, and a testament to human survival and endurance. “Holds the reader to his seat, containing dangers aplenty with deadly falls, killer microbes, sudden burial, asphyxiation, claustrophobia, anxiety, and hallucinations far underneath the ground in a lightless world. Using a pulse-pounding narrative, this is tense real-life adventure pitting two master cavers mirroring the cold war with very uncommonly high stakes.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) “A fascinating and informative introduction to the sport of cave diving, as well as a dramatic portrayal of a significant man-vs.-nature conflict. . . . What counts is Tabor’s knack for maximizing dramatic potential, while also managing to be informative and attentive to the major personalities associated with the most important cave explorations of the last two decades.”—Kirkus Reviews Includes a 16-pg black and white insert