One Mountain More

The Author

“I have climbed the highest mountain on six of the seven continents.”

The moment that statement is uttered it is steeped in controversy. It will never be universally agreed which mountain peaks are the highest on each continent. Two of them are debatable for not being on the continent they are said to be the highest. Who determines the official Seven Summits? What does it mean to say ’I climbed?’ Does it mean you attempted to summit, you summited, you were turned back, or it didn’t matter? Why is it important for mountaineers to climb the highest mountains? Why only six? Why?

The answer to these questions are the subtext of this novel.

What makes a person sacrifice their life for a summit? We climb for different reasons, but loss of life is the price you pay for not getting away with it. Death is the common denominator.

I wanted to share the story of a life of adventure, the part where I felt most alive, most intense, the strongest, smart, carefree and out of my mind – beyond the pale – wild with enthusiasm, doing what I wanted and getting away with it. Climbing the highest mountains, finding the right lover, living the biggest lie, I set out to conquer the world from desperate poverty and lived to tell about it with the fear I would be caught, or the disappointment I would hurt someone I loved. Or wind up dead like Dave Besh or Tom Taplin, both victims of the passion that killed them.

Stuggling to summit Mt. Everest, Denali, Aconcagua, Kilimanjaro, Mt. Blanc, the Matterhorn and Mt. Cook, you can feel the world go round and laugh at the irony. A thought provoking, romantically charged tale by a first person confidant. Focused on adventure, he uses the metaphore of climbing six of the highest mountains on the seven continents — leaving him one mountain short.

The Wild meets Richard Halliburton’s New Worlds to Conquer.