FROM THE PUBLISHER

An intimate story of personal cost, risk, and loss in the mountaineering world.

Nobody has written more eloquently about the human side of high-altitude mountaineering than Maria Coffey. Because the mountaineering world has faced so many devastating losses recently, this is an especially timely story about the loved ones left behind to sort out their sorrow and confusion, anger and healing.

With openness and honesty, Coffey describes her love affair with elite British mountaineer Joe Tasker, who perished with his climbing partner Peter Boardman while attempting Everest¿¿¿s then-unclimbed Northeast Ridge in 1982. She relives her experiences, first within the hard-partying mountaineering scene and then during her long journey to understanding and acceptance of the tragedy that cost her the man she loved. She gives us an insider¿¿¿s view of the life of a world-class mountaineer and recounts her deeply moving pilgrimage with Boardman¿¿¿s widow across Tibet, a journey that retraced Tasker and Boardman¿¿¿s steps to their abandoned Advance Base Camp at 21,000 feet on Everest.