Kirjahaku

Ten days passed with no rescue attempt, while more than half an expedition was stranded and dying at 20,000 feet during a vicious Arctic storm. The bodies were never recovered. And, for reasons that have remained cloudy, there was no proper official investigation of the catastrophe. This book begins as a classic tale of men against nature, gambling—and losing—on one of the world's starkest and stormiest peaks. Reckoning by lives lost, it was history's third-worst mountaineering disaster when it occurred—but elements of finger pointing, incompetence, and cover-up make this disaster unlike any other. James M. Tabor draws on previously untapped sources: personal interviews with survivors and those involved in the aftermath, unpublished diaries and letters, and government documents. He consults not only mountaineers but also experts in disciplines including meteorology, forensics, and psychology. What results is the first full account of the tragedy that ended a golden age in mountaineering.

In 1967, seven young men, members of a twelve-man expedition led by twenty-four-year-old Joe Wilcox, were stranded at 20,000 feet on Alaska’s Mount McKinley in a vicious Arctic storm. Ten days passed while the storm raged, yet no rescue was mounted. All seven perished in what remains the most tragic expedition in American climbing history. Revisiting the event in the tradition of Norman Maclean’s Young Men and Fire, James M. Tabor uncovers elements of controversy, finger-pointing, and cover-up that make this disaster unlike any other.

"Heart-stopping and relentlessly gripping. Tabor takes us on an odyssey into unfathomable worlds beneath us, and into the hearts of rare explorers who will do anything to get there first."--Robert Kurson, author of ShadowDivers In 2004, two great scientist-explorers attempted to find the bottom of the world. American Bill Stone took on the vast, deadly Cheve Cave in southern Mexico. Ukrainian Alexander Klimchouk targeted Krubera, a freezing nightmare of a supercave in the war-torn former Soviet republic of Georgia. Both men spent months almost two vertical miles deep, contending with thousand-foot drops, raging whitewater rivers, monstrous waterfalls, mile-long belly crawls, and the psychological horrors produced by weeks in absolute darkness, beyond all hope of rescue. Based on his unprecedented access to logs and journals as well as hours of personal interviews, James Tabor has crafted a thrilling exploration of man's timeless urge to discover--and of two extraordinary men whose pursuit of greatness led them to the heights of triumph and the depths of tragedy. Blind Descent is an unforgettable addition to the classic literature of true-life adventure, and a testament to human survival and endurance."Holds the reader to his seat, containing dangers aplenty with deadly falls, killer microbes, sudden burial, asphyxiation, claustrophobia, anxiety, and hallucinations far underneath the ground in a lightless world. Using a pulse-pounding narrative, this is tense real-life adventure pitting two master cavers mirroring the cold war with very uncommonly high stakes."--Publishers Weekly (starred review) "A fascinating and informative introduction to the sport of cave diving, as well as a dramatic portrayal of a significant man-vs.-nature conflict. . . . What counts is Tabor's knack for maximizing dramatic potential, while also managing to be informative and attentive to the major personalities associated with the most important cave explorations of the last two decades."--Kirkus ReviewsIncludes a 16-pg black and white insert

The New York Times bestselling account of a thrilling real-life journey into deepest cave on earth.

In 1854, the American entrepreneur Cyrus Field set out to lay a 2,000-mile telegraph cable across the Atlantic. Nothing like it had ever been attempted and Field knew nothing about electricity, telegraphy, ships or oceans. But he believed that wiring the world for near-instantaneous communication would bring about peace on Earth. After years of global scorn, catastrophic failures, staggering losses and brushes with death, Field would finally lay his great cable in 1866 and usher in the global information age as we know it. Lightning Beneath the Sea is an unforgettable tale of radical vision, unwavering determination and triumph against overwhelming odds, as Field and a scientific dream team—including Samuel Morse, a young Lord Kelvin and Michael Faraday—battled epic storms, freak accidents, industrial sabotage and even the enmity of Abraham Lincoln. From acclaimed author James M. Tabor, Lightning Beneath the Sea is the gripping account of an epochal achievement. James M. Tabor’s Forever on the Mountain was praised as: "Some welcome perspective on an enduringly painful episode of mountaineering history…Tabor analyzes this debacle with the doggedness of an investigative reporter and the technical knowledge of an experienced climber." —The Wall Street Journal