Below Another Sky: A Mountain Adventure in Search of a Lost Father - Hardcover

Ridgeway, Rick

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 080506284X ISBN 13: 9780805062847

Publisher: Henry Holt and Co., 2001

Synopsis

A renowned adventurer travels to Tibet with a young woman in search of her father's memory and gains a fresh perspective on his own life.

Combining gripping adventure writing with intimate memoir, Rick Ridgeway takes readers to the mysterious mountain domain of Tibet, and into the remote corners of his past. Twenty years ago, in the wake of a massive and terrifying avalanche, Ridgeway cradled his dying friend Jonathan in his arms and pledged to keep watch over Jonathan's infant daughter, Asia. Now Asia is a vibrant, headstrong young woman; hoping to help her connect with the father she never knew, Ridgeway takes her to the Himalayas Jonathan so cherished. Together, they search for the place where he died.

Their trek through remote and forbidding terrain-under constant threat from lethal storms and jumpy Chinese military patrols-is a fitting backdrop for the precarious emotional journey that Ridgeway and Asia share, as they venture into alien landscapes of memory and self-discovery. Ultimately, the truths they both seek are revealed, not in the images of a life long gone but in the bright promise of future possibility. In a stunning conclusion on a treacherous and wind-battered mountain face, both Ridgeway and his dead friend's daughter finally embrace the deepest realities of death, and of life.

About this title

Review:

On October 13, 1980, alpinists Rick Ridgeway and Yvon Chouinard, in company with National Geographic photographer Jonathan Wright, were struggling up the slopes of the little-explored Tibetan mountain Minya Konka when an avalanche swallowed them. Wright, only 28 years old, died. As he did, Ridgeway writes, "something left him. I saw it." The survivors buried Wright in a rocky grave on Minya Konka's flanks and, dispirited, returned home with the haunting vision of that death always in their memories.

Fast-forward nearly 20 years. Wright's daughter, an infant when he died, asks Ridgeway to take her to Tibet, climb Minya Konka with her, and find her father's grave. Their remarkable journey in honor of a lost friend and father, one that would honor Wright's vow "to live each day as though it were my only one" and that would take them into mountains that had never before been climbed, forms the heart of Ridgeway's thoughtful memoir, which is sure to become a classic of mountaineering literature. The book is, however, more than a simple narrative of a difficult task accomplished; it affords Ridgeway an opportunity to reflect on his many perilous adventures (kayaking in the stormy waters off Tierra del Fuego and scaling Mount Everest among them) and on what drives him to undertake such challenges in the face of hard-earned knowledge of the risks involved--all of it having something to do, as he writes, with "telling yourself you're not sure you can make it, but making it anyway."

Like Peter Matthiessen's Snow Leopard, Ridgeway's book involves a voyage of personal discovery that's rich with meaning. And, like Matthiessen's book, Below Another Sky deserves a place on the shelves of anyone possessed by the spirit of adventure. --Gregory McNamee

About the Author:

Rick Ridgeway, a mountaineer-ing legend, is well known for his writing, photography, and filmmaking. His articles have appreared in numerous magazines, and he is the author of four previous books, including The Shadow of Kilimanjaro, which was named one of the Ten Best Travel Books of 1998 by The New York Times. He lives with his family in Ventura, California.

About this edition

• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 080506284X
• ISBN 13: 9780805062847
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320