Ultimate High: My Everest Odyssey

After carrying his own equipment up to Everest Base Camp, Kropp found himself surrounded by other climbers, all waiting for a break in the weather so they could attempt the summit. Many books have been written about that disastrous season on Everest, notably Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air and Anatoli Boukreev's The Climb. Kroop adds little of substance to the story, engaging mainly in camp gossip about who was sleeping with whom and "outing" climbers who lied about reaching summits. Even Kropp's account of his own climb is somewhat suspenseless--though some readers will be relieved that he doesn't go into too much detail about his physical breakdown. More tiresome is Kropp's clear disdain for climbers who use supplemental oxygen. ("Mount Everest is not 29,028 feet tall if the mountain is scaled by a climber wearing an oxygen mask.") He also despises climbers who "see Everest and other high peaks reduced to trophies kept in a china cabinet"--though his "Ultimate Mountain List" (he's already climbed 16 of the 22) seems a bit like a trophy room itself.

After he finally reached the summit--on his third attempt in under a month--Kropp spent a few weeks recuperating in Kathmandu and then hopped on his bike for the long and rugged ride home. Not satisfied, Kropp is already planning and training for his next adventure, to take place in 2004: sailing from Sweden to Antarctica, skiing to the South Pole, and returning--all solo. That he is only just learning to sail doesn't dissuade him--"I like to jump headfirst into new projects." Ultimate High is proof that he's determined--and crazy--enough to complete them. --Sunny Delaney

Book Description
Ultimate High
My Everest Odyssey

"On October 16, 1995, [Goeran Kropp] had left Stockholm on a custom-built bicycle loaded with 240 pounds of gear, intending to travel round-trip from sea level in Sweden to the top of Everest entirely under his own power, without Sherpa support or bottled oxygen. It was an exceedingly ambitious goal, but Kropp had the credentials to pull it off."
-Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air

Readers of Jon Krakauer's bestselling Into Thin Air will recall Goeran Kropp, the remarkable Swedish solo climber who loves to do what others label impossible. His goal was to reach and climb Mount Everest using his own physical means and without any outside assistance. In doing so, he would earn a place in the record books with the most self-contained combined approach and climb of Mount Everest ever accomplished.

Kropp's Everest quest began 7,000 miles away, in Stockholm, where, at age twenty-nine, he set out by bicycle for Kathmandu, towing behind him nearly everything he'd need to live for a year. In this riveting first-person narrative, Kropp puts his own unique spin on the concept of adventure as he recounts his four-month trek across Europe and Asia, during which he was robbed, assaulted with a baseball bat, almost shot in Turkey, and nearly stoned in Iran. When he left the staging ground in Kathmandu in April 1996, he became the first ever to carry his equipment--all 143 pounds--up 17,100 feet to Everest Base Camp.

Kropp's first attempt at scaling Everest unassisted ended in frustration when he was forced to turn back only 350 feet, one hour, from the summit, his strength drained, his morale crushed. Despite this setback, and in the face of rapidly deteriorating weather that would result in the deadliest season in Everest's history, Kropp steeled himself for a second attempt. Just days after the legendary storm that claimed the lives of eight climbers, he tried again and made it to the top of the world--without Sherpa aid, without bottled oxygen. Within a few days, he loaded up his bike for the equally harrowing 7,000-mile trek back to Stockholm.

A bit more than half the book covers Kropp's own three attempts to summit Everest in the context of the much written about events of May 1996. Kropp adds interesting details to Jon Krakauer's classic account of the 1996 Everest tragedy, "Into Thin Air". Disturbingly, far too much of chapters ten and eleven of "Ultimate High" appear to be borrowed, in places with the almost same wording, from "Into Thin Air". Lagerkrantz acknowledged a debt to Krakauer at the back of the book. Perhaps this is customary in Sweden. Other than this problem of sometimes repeating or paraphrasing Krakauer, "Ultimate High" is a fun read.

It would be valuable, if a second edition of this book could be published that includes a biography of Kropp after Everest until the end of his far too short life in 2002.


See his live talk!   July 9, 2003
 1 out of 2 found this review helpful

My wife and I saw Kropp at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and we were so enthralled that we decided to see his lecture a second time! He is a very enjoyable, congenial, and has an attractive personality. I read the editorial reviews of his book, which were overall slightly disparaging of his elitism and the "ham-handed" story. I can't disagree more. If the reviewers heard him speak I bet they would change their tone.

Kropp is a humble and likeable figure who deserves our admiration. I will follow his career as it progresses. Hats off to Kropp, a man who understands the importance of our natural environment.

P.S. The book is great too. Too bad you can't have Kropp there to read it to you!


A good read   February 24, 2003
 1 out of 1 found this review helpful

I enjoyed reading Kropp's book. It was not a book that you had to consume in one sitting, but one you could put aside for a couple days and then return to. I enjoyed his chatty, straight-talking style, and his taking the time to explain the things he spoke about in a way non-mountaineering people could understand. I knew he had died, but waited to read about his passing until I finished his book. He was an unconventional person who made the most of his moments on this earth.