Conrad Anker

Twenty two years of love, triumph, and tragedy on North America's tallest mountain. Lisa Roderick had already forged an unlikely path, from growing up on a farm in Connecticut to driving the Alaska Highway to start a new life in the 49th state. What happened next--a series of events leading her to spend more time in the Alaska Range than possibly any living human--is even more remarkable. In Alaska, she fell in love with the land, the mountains, and a mountain climber, and soon became swept up in a series of climbing adventures that culminated in her managing the basecamp on Denali, North America's tallest mountain. A tragic plane crash would galvanize Lisa's commitment to protecting Denali's aviators, and she would spend the next 22 seasons living on a massive Alaskan glacier in one of the world's harshest mountain climates. Lisa faithfully executed her duties, providing weather observations for pilots, coordinating flights, and keeping order in the camp, while facing constant worries for the safety of her glacier pilot brother, Paul, and her mountain climber husband, Mark, as they each navigated the myriad hazards of the Alaska Range. Lisa's story is not just about mountains, flying, or climbing. It is a portrait of more than two decades on Denali and the climbers, pilots, and park service rescuers with whom she shared her adventures during her historic and remarkable tenure.

Gripping and sumptuous, this is the definitive book on the history, mystique, and science of Mount Everest, including how climate change is impacting the world's tallest mountain. In 1963, the American Mount Everest Expedition made mountaineering history. It was the first American venture to successfully scale the legendary peak and the first successful climb up the hazardous West Ridge (a climb so difficult no one has yet repeated it). In 2012, adventurer Conrad Anker led a National Geographic/The North Face team up the mountain to enact a legacy climb. Environmental changes and overcrowding led to challenges and disappointments, but yet the mountain maintains its allure. Now, steely-eyed Anker leads a team of writers in a book designed to celebrate the world's most famous mountain, to look back over the years of climbing triumphs and tragedies, and to spotlight what has changed--and what remains eternal--on Mount Everest. Telltale signs of Everest's current state, never-before-published photography, and cutting-edge science expose the world's tallest peak--its ancient meaning, its ever-present challenges, and its future in a world of disappearing ice.

On 8 June 1924, George Leigh Mallory and Andrew 'Sandy' Irvine were last seen climbing towards the summit of Everest. In 1999, Conrad Anker found the body of Mallory on Mount Everest. This title assesses the clues provided by the body, its position, and the possibility that Mallory had successfully climbed the Second Step, a 90-foot sheer cliff.