Mountaintops have long been seen as sacred places, home to gods and dreams. In one climbing year Peter Boardman visited three very different sacred mountains. He began in the New Year, on the South Face of the Carstensz Pyramid in New Guinea. This shark's fin of steep limestone walls and sweeping glaciers is the highest point between the Andes and the Himalaya, and one of the most inaccessible, rising above thick jungle inhabited by warring Stone Age tribes. During the spring Boardman was on more familiar, if hardly more reassuring, ground, making a four-man, oxygen-free attempt on the world's third highest peak, Kangchenjunga. Hurricane-force winds beat back their first two bids on the unclimbed North Ridge, but they eventually stood within feet of the summit - leaving the final few yards untrodden in deference to the inhabiting deity. In October, he was back in the Himalaya and climbing the mountain most sacred to the Sherpas: the twin-summited Gauri Sankar. Renowned for its technical difficulty and spectacular profile, it is aptly dubbed the Eiger of the Himalaya and Boardman's first ascent of the South Summit took a committing and gruelling twenty-three days. Three sacred mountains, three very different expeditions, all superbly captured by Boardman in Sacred Summits, his second book, first published shortly after his death in 1982. Combining the excitement of extreme climbing with acute observation of life in the mountains, this is an amusing, dramatic, poignant and thought-provoking book, amply fulfilling the promise of Boardman's first title, The Shining Mountain, for which he won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 1979.

'It's a preposterous plan. Still, if you do get up it, it'll be the hardest thing that's been done in the Himalayas.' So spoke Chris Bonington when Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker presented him with their plan to tackle the unclimbed West Wall of Changabang - the Shining Mountain - in 1976. Bonington's was one of the more positive responses; most felt the climb impossibly hard, especially for a two-man, lightweight expedition. This was, after all, perhaps the most fearsome and technically challenging granite wall in the Garhwal Himalaya and an ascent - particularly one in a lightweight style - would be more significant than anything done on Everest at the time. The idea had been Joe Tasker's. He had photographed the sheer, shining, white granite sweep of Changabang's West Wall on a previous expedition and asked Pete to return with him the following year. Tasker contributes a second voice throughout Boardman's story, which starts with acclimatisation, sleeping in a Salford frozen food store, and progresses through three nights of hell, marooned in hammocks during a storm, to moments of exultation at the variety and intricacy of the superb, if punishingly difficult, climbing. It is a story of how climbing a mountain can become an all-consuming goal, of the tensions inevitable in forty days of isolation on a two-man expedition; as well as a record of the moment of joy upon reaching the summit ridge against all odds. First published in 1978, The Shining Mountain is Peter Boardman's first book. It is a very personal and honest story that is also amusing, lucidly descriptive, very exciting, and never anything but immensely readable. It was awarded the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for literature in 1979, winning wide acclaim. His second book, Sacred Summits, was published shortly after his death in 1982.

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. A superb writer, he vividly describes the first British winter ascent of the North Face of the Eiger, the first ascent of the West Wall of Changabang - considered a 'preposterous' plan by the climbing world - and his two unsuccessful attempts on K2, the second highest mountain on Earth. Savage Arena is both moving and exciting, an inspirational tale of the adventuring spirit which follows its own path, endlessly seeking new challenges, climbs and difficulties to overcome. It is not reaching the summit which counts, it is the journey to it. It is also a story of the stresses and strains of living for long periods in constant anxiety, often with only one other person, and of the close and vital human relationships which spring from those circumstances.

On 30 January 1981 Joe Tasker and Ade Burgess stood at 24,000 feet on the West Ridge of Mount Everest. Below them were their companions, some exhausted, some crippled by illness, all virtually incapacitated. Further progress seemed impossible. Everest the Cruel Way is Joe Tasker's story of an attempt to climb the highest mountain on earth - an attempt which pushed a group of Britain's finest mountaineers to their limits. The goal had been to climb Mount Everest at its hardest: via the infamous West Ridge, without supplementary oxygen and in winter. Tasker's epic account vividly describes experiences that no climber had previously endured. Close up and personal, it is a gripping account of day-to-day life on expedition and of the struggle to live at high altitude. Joe Tasker was one of Britain's best mountaineers. He was a pioneer of lightweight, alpine-style climbing in the Greater Ranges and had a special talent for writing. He died, along with his friend Peter Boardman, high on Everest in 1982 while attempting a new and unclimbed line. Both men were superb mountaineers and talented writers.

BRITAIN'S GREATEST CLIMBER. 'He is the David Attenborough of mountaineering . . . Bonington's most personal memoir yet.' The Times. 'This is a compelling tale of fortitude and endurance.' - The Sunday Times 'He is the icon of British climbing.' The Daily Mirror Sir Chris Bonington memoir Ascent will chart not only his many triumphs in the climbing world - such as the Eiger, and the Himalaya - but also the struggles he has faced in his life bringing up a family, and maintaining a successful and loving marriage over the decades of travelling the world to conquer mountains. He has undertaken nineteen Himalayan expeditions, including four to Mount Everest which he climbed in 1985 at the age of fifty, and has made many first ascents in the Alps and greater ranges of the world. Along the way we will be fascinated by his many daring climbs, near-death adventures, and the many luminaries of the mountain fraternity he has climbed with, and in some cases - witness their deaths on the rock. The mercurial Dougal Haston; the legendary-tough Don Whillans, the philosopher of the rock Stephen Venables, and the enigmatic Doug Scott, plus many more - this will be an expert's opinion on the past sixty years of British/ world mountaineering. In Ascent Chris also discusses his first wife (Wendy) who tragically passed away after a long battle with motor neuron disease - his many years of caring for her, and then in his twilight years deciding to return to an iconic climb from his past - The Old Man of Hoy - to summit at the age of 80 years of age. He has now also found love again amidst the sadness and grief. It is a truly inspirational tale. Ascent will be a memoir like no other. Not only a cerebral narrative on what it takes to conquer fear, and learn/ develop the technical skills necessary to climb the world's greatest peaks; what it is like to survive in places no human being can ultimately reside in for longer than a few months at very high altitude, but also how one overcomes emotional obstacles, too, and rediscover what drives us on to happiness.

This hillwalking and photo-location guidebook features stunning mountain photography that provides inspiration and motivation, as well as being studies in composition and light to learn from. Included are chapters on mountain safety and equipment, planning a day in the mountains, wild camping, photography technique and equipment, and where to stay, eat and drink. As a bonus Nick describes his mountain life, his hillwalking companions and his inspirations such as the legendary mountain photographer, W. A. Poucher. With a foreword by Sir Chris Bonington Snowdonia is one of the most accessible mountain areas in the UK and photographer Nick Livesey knows it better than most. Having lived in the heart of Snowdonia for the last five years, Nick walks these hills and mountains with his camera most days. In Photographing The Snowdonia Mountains, Nick shares his knowledge guiding us around the best mountain walks, short walks and roadside locations for mountain photography. Fifteen of the best mountain walks for photography in Snowdonia are described by route descriptions and detailed contoured maps, along with photographic advice for each walk. Also described are ten roadside locations and short walks that have the best mountain views for those who don't want a full day out or don't want to walk far, also included are true roadside locations for those who are less mobile.

'It was Kongur that dominated everything, and was the focus of our gaze and aspirations.' So thought Chris Bonington upon the Chinese Mountaineering Association's decision to open many of Tibet and China's mountains to foreigners in the 1980s. Not only did this mean that Kongur, China's 7,719-metre peak, was available to climb, but that those choosing to do so would be among the first to set foot there. It was an opportunity too good to miss. For the planned alpine-style ascent of this daunting peak, Bonington assembled a formidable team, including Peter Boardman, Joe Tasker, Al Rouse and expedition leader Michael Ward. Their reconnaissance and 1981 expedition brought opportunity for discovery and obstacles in equal measure: they were able to explore areas that had eluded westerners since Eric Shipton's role as British Consul General in Kashgar in the 1940s; but appalling weather, unplanned bivouacs and tensions characterised their quest for the ever-elusive route to the summit. Featuring diary extracts and recollections from each team member, this account not only captures the gripping detail of the ascent attempts, but also the ebb and flow of the relationships between the remarkable mountaineers involved. Add to this the pioneering medical work on high-altitude illnesses conducted by the four-man medical team, and the result is a book which captures a unique moment in mountaineering history. Written with the cheer and eloquence typical of Chris Bonington, Kongur captures the essence of adventure and exploration that brings readers back to his books time and time again.

For Chris Bonington and Charles Clarke, long-time friends and expedition partners, few mountains were more alluring than Sepu Kangri. Known locally as 'the Great White Snow God', Tibet's nearly 7,000-metre mountain had never before been visited by Westerners. Armed only with a tourist map for reference, the two set off for this elusive peak in 1996. In the reconnaissance and two expeditions that followed, neither of them were expecting to be profoundly impacted by their experiences. However, they not only met their match in Sepu Kangri, but both found their expertise pushed to the limit. While Clarke acted as a travelling doctor, treating myriad ailments encountered along the way, including a life-saving diagnosis of an ectopic pregnancy, Bonington's love of technology saw him testing out cutting-edge satellite phones and computers, allowing them to communicate with the outside world for the first time on an expedition. Tibet's Secret Mountain is a story of discovery as much as it is an account of the expeditions, and it is this that sets it apart from other mountaineering memoirs. The focus not only on the climbing itself, but the experiences, people and tensions that accompany it, offers a poignancy that anyone with a love of adventure will identify with. Beautifully written and full of unfailing cheer, Tibet's Secret Mountain is Bonington and Clarke's love letter to mountaineering.

When leading mountaineer Sir Chris Bonington was researching Quest for Adventure, his study of post-war adventure, he contacted Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, the first person to sail single-handed and non-stop around the world, for an interview. This simple request turned into an exchange of skills, which then grew into a joint expedition to Greenland's unexplored Lemon Mountains. Sea, Ice and Rock is the story of this epic journey. With both Bonington and Knox-Johnston having little experience in the other's craft, their expedition was not without difficulty. But through one another's support, the two men and their team sailed from Britain to Greenland, going on to twice attempt the Lemon Mountain's forbidding highest peak, the Cathedral. Though their attempts ended in a dramatic descent, this could not dampen the unfailing optimism with which the two approached their task. They recount their experiences not only with appreciation for the awe-inspiring nature that surrounded them, but also for one another. Layers of alternate narration between Bonington and Knox-Johnston make this a truly collaborative memoir. In the same way they exchanged skills on their expedition, the two authors rely on one another's recollections to fill the gaps in their own. Full of ambition and perseverance, anyone wondering why Bonington and Knox-Johnston are masters in their fields need only read Sea, Ice and Rock.

The North Face of the Eiger was long notorious as the most dangerous climb in the Swiss Alps, one that had claimed the lives of numerous mountaineers. In February 1966, two teams - one German, the other British-American - aimed to climb it by a new direct route. Astonishingly, the two teams knew almost nothing about each other's attempt until both arrived at the foot of the face. The race was on. John Harlin led the four-man British-American team and intended to make an Alpine-style dash for the summit as soon as weather conditions allowed. The Germans, with an eight-man team, planned a relentless Himalayan-style ascent, whatever the weather. The authors were key participants as the dramatic events unfolded. Award-winning writer Peter Gillman, then twenty-three, was reporting for the Telegraph, talking to the climbers by radio and watching their monumental struggles from telescopes at the Kleine Scheidegg hotel. Renowned Scottish climber Dougal Haston was a member of Harlin's team, forging the way up crucial pitches on the storm-battered mountain. Chris Bonington began as official photographer but then played a vital role in the ascent. Eiger Direct, first published in 1966, is a story of risk and resilience as the climbers face storms, frostbite and tragedy in their quest to reach the summit. This edition features a new introduction by Peter Gillman.

Quest for Adventure is a collection of stories written by Sir Chris Bonington looking at the adventurous impulse which has driven men and women to achieve the impossible in the face of Earth’s elements: crossing its oceans, deserts and poles; canoeing its rivers; climbing its mountains, and descending into its caves. Bonington selects seventeen of the most thrilling expeditions and adventures of the mid-late twentieth century, uncovering the common thread that drives men and women to achieve the impossible. Following a new preface, he charts such outstanding achievements as Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki voyage across the Pacific Ocean; Francis Chichester’s round-the-world tour in his boat Gipsy Moth IV; the race for the first non-stop circumnavigation of the globe under sail; and Ice Bird’s sail around Antarctica. Away from the ocean, the travels of one of the world’s most outstanding desert explorers, Wilfred Thesiger, are detailed, journeying through what is menacingly called the Empty Quarter. Bonington returns to familiar ground as he writes about some exceptional mountain adventures, including the 1970 ascent of the South Face of Annapurna; Hillary and Tenzing’s first ascent of Everest; Reinhold and Gunther Messner on Nanga Parbat; Andy Cave’s triumph and tragedy on Changabang; and the Warren-Harding-led first ascent of The Nose of El Capitan in Yosemite. Wally Herbert’s team crossing of the Arctic Ocean and the equally gruelling Fuchs/Hillary crossing of Antarctica are written about in detail. More recent adventures include the race to make the first circumnavigation of the globe by balloon – a high-stakes race with a high-profile cast, including Richard Branson and Steve Fossett. Quest for Adventure concludes with an account of the cave diving epic the Dead Man’s Handshake, leaving the reader with a chill in their spine and an appreciation for the natural wonders below the Earth’s surface. Bonington’s eloquent writing on a subject in which he is a passionate authority makes for a highly engrossing read for adventurers and armchair explorers alike.

Sir Chris Bonington is a household name as a result of his distinguished mountaineering career during which he has lead pioneering expeditions to the summits of some of the most stunning mountains in the world. The Everest Years shares the story of his relationship with the highest and most sought-after peak on the planet, Everest, and his ultimate fulfilment upon finally summiting in 1985 at age fifty. Bonington chronicles four expeditions to the Himalaya and Everest, including the 1975 South-West Face expedition on which he was leader and on which Doug Scott and Dougal Haston became the first Britons to summit the mountain. Bonington also recounts expeditions to K2 and The Ogre (Baintha Brakk) in the Karakoram, and Kongur, in China, describing passionately each attempt: the logistics, glory, and tragedy, seeking to explain his perpetual fascination with the highest points on earth, despite repeatedly enduring the trauma of losing friends, and often placing huge responsibility upon anxious loved ones left at home. The Everest Years reveals Bonington's love and appreciation for his ever-supportive wife Wendy, the loyal Sherpas, the companions sharing his mountain memories including Doug Scott, Dougal Haston, Peter Boardman, Joe Tasker and Mo Anthoine, and of course the glorious peaks of the Himalaya and Karakoram mountain ranges. Following I Chose to Climb and The Next Horizon, this final instalment of Bonington's autobiography will take you through a huge spectrum of brutally honest emotions and majestic landscapes.

The Next Horizon, the second volume in Chris Bonington's autobiography after I Chose to Climb, picks up his story from 1962 and relates his subsequent adventures as a mountaineer, photographer, journalist and expedition leader alongside eminent climbers including Doug Scott and Don Whillans, throughout an extraordinary decade of adversity, thrill and discovery. The book opens with a journey to Chile to climb the Central Tower of Paine. Bonington then recounts his ascents across the globe; from the Old Man of Hoy in Scotland, the Eiger in Switzerland, to Sangay in Ecuador to name but a few. He concludes in the summer of 1972 with preparations for his ambitious autumn Everest expedition. This revealing narrative of Chris Bonington's experiences provides an insight into the charismatic generation of climbing personalities with whom he travelled, as well as his development into the celebrity we know today.

The story of the Snowdonia National Park and the Society, dedicated to conserving and enhancing its unique landscape, is one which will fascinate and inform those who live and work within it as well as being of interest to visitors, be they picnickers or sightseers or committed hill walkers, climbers, canoeists and mountain bikers. This book commemorates the fortieth anniversary of the Snowdonia Society and is a record of its sometimes turbulent history and the ever-changing but still inspiring landscape of the National Park. Created in 1951, the Snowdonia National Park is a landscape of rugged grandeur, great natural diversity and cultural associations going back thousands of years. The vision of its founders was that this very special region should be protected from harmful development for all time. From the beginning, however, there were problems? Out of these difficulties grew the idea of an independent society dedicated to conserving and enhancing the landscape. Today the Snowdonia Society has a membership of over 2,500 and has a close working relationship with both the Snowdonia National Park Authority and the Council for National Parks. This lively narrative chronicles the story of the Snowdonia Society ? its successes and failures, its internal conflict and the personalities involved ? as well as discussing the wider issues which have affected this unique landscape over the last forty years. This lavishly illustrated book will appeal to anyone who loves the rugged landscape of Snowdonia, published in dual language text of English and Welsh.

Chris Bonington Mountaineer is a photographic autobiography, documenting over sixty years of climbing the world's most beautiful and challenging mountains. Few climbers can match Bonington's climbing achievements. He is one of the most accomplished and respected climbers in the world. In this 2016 revised edition, which features over 500 photographs, we are given a frank perspective into the surreal, majestic and occasionally tragic corners of his incredible mountaineering career. Whether in the Arctic, the jungle or on an 8,000-metre peak, Bonington's stunning photography and engaging conversational prose take us through the detail of daily life on expedition, the action of the climbing and the grandeur of the mountains. From his foundations - climbing in Snowdonia, the English Lake District, and the Highlands of Scotland - Bonington takes us to the Alps and on his expedition apprenticeship in 1960s Nepal. This quickly leads to trips to Patagonia, the Karakoram, the Amazon, Baffin Island and the River Nile, before the meat of his career on the big walls and 8,000-metre peaks of the Himalaya - with his leadership of the expeditions that made the first ascents of the south face of Annapurna in 1970 and the south-west face of Everest in 1975, and culminating in his own ascent of Everest in 1985. The greatest challenge and survival story of all is his first ascent and epic descent of The Ogre in Pakistan with Doug Scott. Bonington's undying hunger for adventure leads to later exploratory trips to Greenland, India and Morocco, and a return to the scene of one of his defining first ascents, the Old Man of Hoy, with world-class adventure climber Leo Houlding. The result is a penetrating insight into the motivations and fears of a driven climber who set out year after year from a life of comfort and success to test himself amongst the world's most savage mountains. Chris Bonington Mountaineer is a must for anyone with a passion for exploration, mountains or climbing.

On Thin Ice is Mick Fowler's second set of climbing memoirs, following Vertical Pleasure. Here, the celebrated mountaineer records his expeditions since 1990 where, despite work and family commitments, he maintained a regular series of 'big trips' to challenging objectives around the world with a sequence of major successes. The combination of exotic travel with major climbs provides the ultimate adrenalin-soaked holiday experience that Mick Fowler has mastered to the full. We are transported from the cliffs of Jordan to remote peaks in deepest Asia via Taweche and Changabang in the Himalaya, with jaunts to the Andes and Alaska thrown in for good measure. That Fowler has organised this routine for years, while holding down a conventional nine-to-five job with the Inland Revenue, has constantly amazed his peers. In this, his second book, he has also mastered the skills of amusing travel-writing to entertain us as a preliminary to the finale of a titanic struggle on each of his fiendishly demanding climbs. His ascent of Siguniang in 2002, with Paul Ramsden featured hard ice climbing on a fabulous face in deepest China and was so admired by the international climbing community that it won the US Golden Piton and the French Piolets d'Or, both awards given for the finest alpine achievements in the world during that year. Fowler describes his travels in the great traditions, with engaging modesty and wit, but the climbs themselves are frequently so dramatic that the anxiety and tension forces its way to the surface to be matched by a corresponding relief and triumph when success and safe descent is achieved.

'To those who went to the War straight from school and survived it, the problem of what to do afterwards was peculiarly difficult.' For H.W. 'Bill' Tilman, the solution lay in Africa: in gold prospecting, mountaineering and a 3,000-mile bicycle ride across the continent. Tilman was one of the greatest adventurers of his time, a pioneering climber and sailor who held exploration above all else. He made first ascents throughout the Himalaya, attempted Mount Everest, and sailed into the Arctic Circle. For Tilman, the goal was always to explore, to see new places, to discover rather than conquer. First published in 1937, Snow on the Equator chronicles Tilman's early adventures; his transition from East African coffee planter to famed mountaineer. After World War I, Tilman left for Africa, where he grew coffee, prospected for gold and met Eric Shipton, the two beginning their famed mountaineering partnership, traversing Mount Kenya and climbing Kilimanjaro and Ruwenzori. Tilman eventually left Africa in typically adventurous style via a 3,000-mile solo bicycle ride across the continent - all recounted here in splendidly funny style. Tilman is one of the greatest of all travel writers. His books are well-informed and keenly observed, concerned with places and people as much as summits and achievements. They are full of humour and anecdotes and are frequently hilarious. He is part of the great British tradition of comic writing and there is nobody else quite like him.

The early climbing years of Britain's greatest living mountaineer, from his schooldays to his ascent of the Eiger in 1962. I CHOSE TO CLIMB, first published in 1966, was Chris Bonington's first book. He was recognised then, as now, as one of the outstanding members of a brilliant generation of mountaineers, which included such personalities as Hamish MacInnes, Don Whillans and Ian Clough. Here he describes his climbing beginnings as a teenager as well as successful ascents all over the world: the first ascent of the Central Pillar of Freney, the first British ascent of the North Face of the Eiger in 1962, Annapurna II in 1960 and in an unhappy expedition in 1961, Nuptse, the third peak of Everest. The first volume of Chris Bonington's autobiography is written with a warmth and enthusiasm that he has made his own. It tells of his climbing tastes and practice, and of family, friends and partnerships cemented over many years.