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On the Ridge Between Life and Death: A Climbing Life Reexamined | 
 enlarge | Author: David Roberts
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 119262
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 432
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.3
ISBN: 0743255194
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.522092
EAN: 9780743255196
ASIN: 0743255194
Publication Date: August 29, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: New, unread, unused and in perfect condition with no missing or damaged pages, may have a remainder mark.
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Product Description
What compels mountain climbers to take the risks that they do? Is it the thrill in the physical accomplishment, in managing to defy the odds, or both -- and why do they continue to do what they do in the face of such great danger? In On the Ridge Between Life and Death, David Roberts confronts these questions head-on as he recounts the exhilarating highs and desperate lows of his climbing career. By the time he was twenty-two, Roberts had already been involved in three fatal mountain climbing accidents and had escaped death himself by the sheerest of luck. And yet, as he acknowledges, few things have brought him more joy than climbing.In a famous essay on the subject written more than twenty years ago, Roberts judged climbing to be "worth the risk." He continues to climb to this day, and several of his challenging routes in Alaska have never been climbed since. But in reassessing the emotional costs to himself and to loved ones, he reaches a different conclusion, one that is sure to cause controversy not only in climbing circles, but among adventurers of all kinds. Candid and unflinching, On the Ridge Between Life and Death is a compelling examination of the risks we take in order to feel more alive.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 gripping life tale November 16, 2007
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
An introspective recap of a climbing life by a pioneer in the field. Wonderfully written, with a lot of humanity.
 Doesn't deserve one star December 7, 2006
5 out of 16 found this review helpful
This is the first review I have ever submitted. I have read over a hundred books about mountaineering but I must say this is the worst. He should have named the book "me me me". I have never read a more egotistical writer. Anyone giving him a 5 star rating must be related.
 For a Few Dollars More.... May 28, 2006
11 out of 15 found this review helpful
Like Clint Eastwood's early "spaghetti westerns", Roberts's memoir is a too long, but generally fascinating narrative replete with seemingly numberless dead bodies, and one terribly misused girl, about whom the "hard man" protagonist shows remarkably little feeling.
Let me acknowledge: I'm not a climber. I LOVE mountains, especially the world above timberline, and like Roberts I was awed by Maurice Herzog's Annapurna in my youth and by the accounts of Hillary and Tenzing - and earlier Mallory - on Everest. But my fear of heights - and perhaps good sense - have limited me to the walk-ups like Mt. Elbert which Roberts ridicules.
Let me also ackowledge why Roberts's memoir troubles me so much. One of the finest young men I taught and coached in prep school was lost in a crevasse on Shishapangma in 1996. He was a 3rd year med student who had very limited climbing experience, yet the expedition leaders never acknowledged that he should not have been allowed to proceed solo between camps at 21,000'. To me his loss epitomizes the awful waste of life on mountains and the callous attitude of those like Roberts who encourage neophytes beyond their capacities and seem to feel no genuine remorse.
The major drawback of this memoir, for the general reader, simply from a story-telling point of view, is its far too-long descriptions of many of Roberts's Alaskan climbs. Serious climbers may revel in the details of carabineers (I may or may not have spelled it right - and don't care) and route-finding and the like - almost minute by minute at times, but non-climbers will become weary and bored. With some skimming of those sections, I persevered to the end. Roberts's narrative style is, otherwise, effective plus I had to find out if he really was as hard and cold and short of compassion as steely-eyed Clint Eastwood. Yup. But, hey, telling about all the dead, and about "Lisa", will bring Roberts a few dollars more, right?
Is it worth the risk March 19, 2006
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
I'm a climber only in the sense that I have paid guides to lead me up big mountains, which in the climbing world doesn't count for much. But I have been cold and afraid in the mountains, enough to appreciate what Roberts is talking about. A few days before what was my biggest climb, I met a young Argentine who would die a few days later on Alpamayo. We heard the news on the radio our Peruvian porters listened to incessantly (yes, I used porters). Something that has always bothered me about real climbers is their attitude toward risk, which is a euphemism for death. The 'hard man' attitude that Roberts discusses is very real. It is just casually accepted that people die climbing, and that it is worth the risk. Roberts's unique honesty allows the reader to see where the hard man comes from. He does it by painting a fairly painfully unflattering portrait of himself. Maybe even more unflattering than he intended. I am not a very hard man, and I found his description of Ed's death on Mt. Huntington and the subsequent telling of his parents almost unbearably sad. As is his description of his disastrous high school love affair. Somehow, Roberts has managed to write a book that conveys the majesty of the grand ranges, and why climbing breeds obsession, without letting the tragedy, of which there is plenty, fade entirely into the background. He has also ruthlessly kept out the various hackneyed sentiments often found in mountaineering books. Not any Mark Twight type hard man preening here, and the brooding is more under control than in Joe Simpson's later books, though I like them as well. But,when the rat is gnawing, and you're wondering whether maybe your planned route is too ambitious, like maybe fatally so, this is not the book to read. Save it for a chair and a warm fire.
Inside an Adventurer's Soul January 27, 2006
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
Wow! Having read many climbing narratives and essays, I was expecting more of the same--exciting adventure writing similar to war accounts. David Roberts' newest book has all the first-person nail-biting drama, of course, of putting up world-class routes in frozen wilderness, but the surprise here is the intelligent, unflinching inner dialogue off the mountain. Roberts has seen and experienced high risk, death and deprivation, has lost and gained much from his chosen battles, and has explored the consequences here in an amazingly conscious way. This rare book sheds a great deal of light on the reasons Roberts was drawn away from the safe, tame and mundane 'everydayness' of modern life, even as he fought the demons that drew him away from his quests, even as he became aware of the spreading ripples that emanated from his passion for the climbing life. Undoubtedly these internal struggles rage inside many who try to balance a burning love for earth's wild and dangerous places (climbers, explorers, kayakers, surfers...) against the tidal pull of human relations.
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