Outdoor Mountains

In 2018, two couples set out on a climbing expedition to Alaska’s Hidden Mountains, one of the last wild ranges in North America. A rarity in modern climbing, the peaks were nearly unexplored and untouched, a place where few people had ever visited and granite spires still awaited first ascents. Inspired by generations of daring alpinists before them, the four climbers were now compelled to strike out into uncharted territory themselves.

Zimmerman writes of the exhilaration he feels while climbing but also the painful realization that summiting at all costs is an outdated model. As A Fine Line traces Graham's journey, mountain lovers everywhere will see themselves in this coming-of-age story of adventure and personal reckoning.

The Mountains Are Calling is the exhilarating story of the runners who go to high places. From its wild origins in the Highlands, hill running in Scotland remains as pure and traditional as sport gets. Jonny Muir explores the history and culture of the sport and meets the legends of hill running, who are revered for their extraordinary endurance. As he discovers the insatiable lure of the hills, a calling leads him to the supreme test of mountain running: Ramsay's Round, a continuous loop of 23 of Scotland highest mountains, to be completed within 24 hours.

The Last Blue Mountain is the heart-rending true story of the 1957 expedition to Mount Haramosh in the Karakoram range in Pakistan. With the summit beyond reach, four young climbers are about to return to camp. Their brief pause to enjoy the view and take photographs is interrupted by an avalanche which sweeps Bernard Jillott and John Emery hundreds of feet down the mountain into a snow basin. Rae Culbert and Tony Streather risk their own lives to rescue their friends, only to become stranded alongside them.

Endless ice. Thin air. The threat of dropping into nothingness thousands of feet below. This is the climb Silvia Vasquez-Lavado braves in her pulse-raising memoir. A Latina hero in the elite macho tech world of Silicon Valley, privately, she was hanging by a thread. Deep in the throes of alcoholism, hiding her sexuality from her family, and repressing the abuse she’d suffered as a child, she started climbing. She then took her biggest pain as a survivor to the biggest mountain: Everest.

A groundbreaking volume from the president and CEO of the Appalachian Mountain Club makes the profound argument that to preserve the environment, a revolution must take place in which every person becomes a champion for nature and the outdoors. In The Outdoor Citizen, John Judge coins the term "the outdoor citizen" delivering his remarkably persuasive argument that we must all become citizens of the natural world, owning and instilling in the next generation a keen interest in the outdoors and reconnecting with life's most essential foundation: nature.

Stephen Alter was raised by American missionary parents in the hill station of Mussoorie, in the foothills of the Himalayas, where he and his wife Ameeta, now live. Their idyllic existence was brutally interrupted when four armed intruders invaded their house and viciously attacked them, leaving them for dead. The violent assault and the trauma of almost dying left him questioning assumptions he had lived by since childhood. For the first time, he encountered the face of evil and the terror of the unknown.

Using an infamous deception about a fake mountain range in British Columbia as her jumping-off point, Katie Ives explores the lure of blank spaces on the map and the value of the imagination. In Imaginary Peaks she details the cartographical mystery of the Riesenstein Hoax within the larger context of climbing history and the seemingly endless quest for newly discovered peaks and claims of first ascents. Imaginary Peaks is an evocative, thought-provoking tale, immersed in the literature of exploration, study of maps, and basic human desire.

Fanny Bullock Workman was a complicated and restless woman who defied the rigid Victorian morals she found as restrictive as a corset. With her frizzy, brown hair tucked under a topee, Workman was a force on the mountain and off. Instrumental in breaking the British stranglehold on Himalayan mountain climbing, this American woman climbed more peaks than any of her peers, became the first woman to map the far reaches of the Himalayas, the first woman to lecture at the Sorbonne, and the second to address the Royal Geographic Society of London.

Acclaimed writer David Smart illuminates the fascinating life of Royal Robbins—in all its soulful ambition, rivalry, and romance. Royal Robbins chronicles his early years growing up as a latchkey kid in Southern California, the push and pull between being an aspiring banker or one of the original Camp 4 dirtbags, and his later decades as a father, husband, kayaker, and the trailblazing founder of the outdoor apparel company that bears his name.

As he teetered on a narrow rock ledge, a yak's bellow short of the stratosphere, with a rubber mask strapped to his face, a pair of mittens the size of a sea lion's flippers, and a drop of two kilometres below him, it's fair to say Mark Horrell wasn't entirely happy with the situation he found himself in. He had been an ordinary hiker who had only read books about mountaineering. When he signed up for an organized trek in Nepal with a group of elderly ladies, little did he know that ten years later he would be attempting to climb the world's highest mountain.

In this collection of his finest work from such magazines as Outside and Smithsonian, Krakauer explores the subject from the unique and memorable perspective of one who has himself battled peaks like K2, Denali, Everest, and, of course, Eiger.

Failure Is an Option is the story of an average runner who sets out to discover just how far he can go. With the support (and misgivings) of his family, and aware that his quickest years are behind him, Matt Whyman leaves the Saturday morning 5K to push towards 100-mile ultramarathons and beyond. By slowing things down to run a very long way, he joins a growing number of men and women from all walks of life striving to do something extraordinary.

Imagine understanding the importance of mindset before advancing your personal skill level. The amount of growth we experience as youth is tremendous and has a permanent impact on the development of our future. Mountain biking is a combination of physical discipline, technique, and mindset, all of which young riders need to grasp, not just for the sport, but more importantly the life lessons.

Helen Mort has always been drawn to the thrill and risk of climbing: the tension between human and rockface, and the climber's powerful connection to the elemental world. But when she becomes a mother for the first time, she finds herself re-examining her relationship with both the natural world and herself, as well as the way the world views women who aren't afraid to take risks.

In the winter of 1959, a group of nine young and experienced hikers embarked on a journey into the Ural Mountains of Russia. Although they had previously undertaken cold-weather trips, this particular expedition would tragically be their last. During their trek, the hikers encountered something unexpected in the supposedly desolate region, resulting in the demise of the entire group. The exact events of that fateful night remain unknown, but the incident has since become one of the world's most perplexing mysteries.

Patagonia's Cerro Torre, considered by many the most beautiful peak in the world, draws the finest and most devoted technical alpinists to its climbing challenges. But controversy has swirled around this ice-capped peak since Cesare Maestri claimed first ascent in 1959. Since then a debate has raged, with world-class climbers attempting to retrace his route but finding only contradictions. This chronicle of hubris, heroism, controversies, and epic journeys offers a glimpse into the human condition, and why some pursue extreme endeavors that at face value have no worth.

Are you ready for more adventure? Get ready to explore caves systems and mountaintops with Chief Scout Bear Grylls.... Each audiobook in this fun new 12-book series from Bear Grylls follows a different child on an outdoor activity camp. Once they are given a magical compass, they meet the inspirational adventurer in an amazing place and learn new skills and facts they can take with them back to their real life.

When, during the Pyrenean stages of the 1998 Tour de France, a journalist asked Marco Pantani why he rode so fast in the mountains, the elfin Italian, unmistakeable in the bandanna and hooped ear-rings that played up to his 'Pirate' nickname, replied: 'To shorten my agony.' Drawing on the fervour for these men of the mountains, Climbers looks at what sets these athletes apart within the world of bike racing, about why we love and cherish them, how they make cycling beautiful and how they see themselves and the feats they achieve.

Surround Yourself with Greatness takes listeners around the world while looking through the eyes, mind, and heart of Chad Lewis - a once freckle-faced, four-eyed, skinny teenager who at an early age wrote in his journal, “My goal and quest is to surround myself with greatness...only greatness will penetrate the walls of my heart.”