The World's Most Amazing Mountains


Book Description

This series introduces you to the highest, longest, widest, and most unusual landforms in the world! Books include: maps to show the location of each landform, information about how the landforms were created, an introduction to the many plants and animals that call each landform home, and plenty of amazing facts.




The World's Most Amazing Mountains


Book Description

Which mountain has the highest point on the Earth's surface? Why is K2 known as the "Savage Mountain"? Which species of frog lives only on Table Mountain? The world has many mountains--from high, snowy peaks to wide, flat, plateaus. Find out about the incredible weather systems that help shape these landforms, the animals make their homes here, and the brave explorers who first climbed them.




World Mountaineering


Book Description




K2


Book Description

A thrilling chronicle of the tragedy-ridden history of climbing the world's most difficult and unpredictable mountain, by the bestselling authors of The Mountain and No Shortcuts to the Top “Gripping . . . reveals a good deal about the rarefied noble-gonzo world of high-altitude mountaineering.”—The New York Times Ed Viesturs, one of the world's premier high-altitude mountaineers, explores the remarkable history of K2 and of those who have attempted to conquer it. At the same time, he probes the mountain's most memorable sagas in order to illustrate lessons about the fundamental questions mountaineering raises—questions of risk, ambition, loyalty to one's teammates, self-sacrifice, and the price of glory. Viesturs knows the mountain firsthand. He and renowned alpinist Scott Fischer climbed it in 1992 and got caught in an avalanche that sent them sliding to almost certain death before Ed managed to get into a self-arrest position with his ice ax and stop both his fall and Scott's. Focusing on seven of the mountain's most dramatic campaigns, from his own troubled ascent to the 2008 tragedy, Viesturs crafts an edge-of-your-seat narrative that climbers and armchair travelers alike will find unforgettably compelling. With photographs from Viesturs's personal collection and from historical sources, this is the definitive account of the world's ultimate mountain, and of the lessons that can be gleaned from struggling toward its elusive summit.




Climbing the World's 14 Highest Mountains


Book Description

"The year 2000 is the fiftieth anniversary of the ascent of Annapurna, the first of the 8000-meter peaks to be climbed. In the decade following that first ascent in 1950, all but one of the world's fourteen highest mountains were climbed; the period from 1950 to 1960 can be considered the Golden Age for high altitude climbing. Only Shisha Pangma remained unclimbed until 1964 when a Chinese party led by Hsu Ching reached the summit." "This book brings together the stories behind the discovery, exploration and first successful ascents of each of the fourteen highest peaks, as well as accounts of the most important attempts and ascents that followed. Many of these stories illustrate how modern technology has enabled mountaineers to climb the previously unscaled peaks, while still demonstrating the importance of the human element."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved




The Mountain Within


Book Description

One of the best mountaineers of our generation ?nally reveals the details of his many exciting extreme alpine ascents—ascents in which his only equipment is a pair of shoes and a small bag for holding chalk. Clinging to the crevasses in mountain walls, with muscles bulging as he makes his free ascent, Huber has become one of the world’s most recognized and photographed extreme alpine climbers. Along with many other legendary ascents detailed here, he and his brother set a new record of 2 hours and 46 minutes on El Capitan, The Nose, Yosemite Park in the Fall of 2007—a climb that usually takes three days. When he free-soloed the Kommunist’s famous peaks, Alexander Huber declared, “Why? For me, it is the search for my limits. On the other side, I am aware that the time is limited.” With major corporate sponsors like Adidas and Atmoic, this is a fascinating insight into one of the world’s best mountaineers.




Touching the Void


Book Description

The 25th Anniversary ebook, now with more than 50 images. 'Touching the Void' is the tale of two mountaineer’s harrowing ordeal in the Peruvian Andes. In the summer of 1985, two young, headstrong mountaineers set off to conquer an unclimbed route. They had triumphantly reached the summit, when a horrific accident mid-descent forced one friend to leave another for dead. Ambition, morality, fear and camaraderie are explored in this electronic edition of the mountaineering classic, with never before seen colour photographs taken during the trip itself.




The Second Mountain


Book Description

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Everybody tells you to live for a cause larger than yourself, but how exactly do you do it? The author of The Road to Character explores what it takes to lead a meaningful life in a self-centered world. “Deeply moving, frequently eloquent and extraordinarily incisive.”—The Washington Post Every so often, you meet people who radiate joy—who seem to know why they were put on this earth, who glow with a kind of inner light. Life, for these people, has often followed what we might think of as a two-mountain shape. They get out of school, they start a career, and they begin climbing the mountain they thought they were meant to climb. Their goals on this first mountain are the ones our culture endorses: to be a success, to make your mark, to experience personal happiness. But when they get to the top of that mountain, something happens. They look around and find the view . . . unsatisfying. They realize: This wasn’t my mountain after all. There’s another, bigger mountain out there that is actually my mountain. And so they embark on a new journey. On the second mountain, life moves from self-centered to other-centered. They want the things that are truly worth wanting, not the things other people tell them to want. They embrace a life of interdependence, not independence. They surrender to a life of commitment. In The Second Mountain, David Brooks explores the four commitments that define a life of meaning and purpose: to a spouse and family, to a vocation, to a philosophy or faith, and to a community. Our personal fulfillment depends on how well we choose and execute these commitments. Brooks looks at a range of people who have lived joyous, committed lives, and who have embraced the necessity and beauty of dependence. He gathers their wisdom on how to choose a partner, how to pick a vocation, how to live out a philosophy, and how we can begin to integrate our commitments into one overriding purpose. In short, this book is meant to help us all lead more meaningful lives. But it’s also a provocative social commentary. We live in a society, Brooks argues, that celebrates freedom, that tells us to be true to ourselves, at the expense of surrendering to a cause, rooting ourselves in a neighborhood, binding ourselves to others by social solidarity and love. We have taken individualism to the extreme—and in the process we have torn the social fabric in a thousand different ways. The path to repair is through making deeper commitments. In The Second Mountain, Brooks shows what can happen when we put commitment-making at the center of our lives.




Mountains from Space


Book Description

Collects images of Earth's mountain ranges in views taken from fifteen to five hundred miles above the planet, revealing complete mountain ranges unobstructed by barriers such as haze, clouds, and light refraction.




Mountains of the World


Book Description

Provides facts about the mountains of the world and describes the animals that live there and the adventurers who have tried to scale these peaks.