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Jon Krakauer

Eiger Dreams

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No one writes about mountaineering and its attendant hardships and victories more brilliantly than critically acclaimed author Jon Krakauer. In this collection of his finest work from such magazines as Outside and Smithsonian, he explores the subject from the unique and memorable perspective of one who has battled peaks like K2, Denali, Everest, and, of course, the Eiger. Always with a keen eye, an open heart, and a hunger for the ultimate experience, he gives us unerring portraits of the mountaineering experience.

Yet Eiger Dreams is more about people than about rock and ice—people with that odd, sometimes maniacal obsession with mountain summits that sets them apart from other men and women. Here we meet Adrian the Romanian, determined to be the first of his countrymen to solo Denali; John Gill, climber not of great mountains but of house-sized boulders so difficult to surmount that even demanding alpine climbs seem easy; and many more compelling and colorful characters. In the most intimate piece, “The Devils Thumb,” Krakauer recounts his own near-fatal, ultimately triumphant struggle with solo-madness as he scales Alaska's Devils Thumb. Eiger Dreams is stirring, vivid writing about one of the most compelling and dangerous of all human pursuits.
This book is currently unavailable
239 printed pages
Original publication
2009
Publication year
2009
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Quotes

  • votdimahas quoted6 years ago
    To Gill, maintaining an inner calm during moments of extreme stress is one of the ultimate goals in climbing.
  • votdimahas quoted6 years ago
    “When I first recognized the tremendous force of a mainstream perspective,” Gill continues, “the tremendous force that a climbing community can exert upon your climbing experience, I realized that I wanted to experiment with climbing, that I wasn’t interested in making my climbing fall into a category, walking in someone else’s footsteps, or obeying a set of informal rules, even if unwritten rules. I decided that an easy way to avoid the restrictive mainstream perspective was to climb in solitude. I simply found it to be very, very difficult to experiment while climbing with other people, or even while staying at a climbers’ campground. When I climbed in solitude I discovered that I had marvelous inner adventures.”
  • Tana Stamperhas quoted6 years ago
    Well,” he explained as he stood shivering in a blizzard, reeling from nausea and a blinding headache while attempting to repair a broken radio antenna, “it’s sort of like having fun, only different.”

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