Ed Viesturs – No Shortcuts to the Top

After seeing Ed speak at the Banff Mountain Festival, I immediately got his book.

He’s one of the few normal people in high altitude mountaineering. (The only other that jumps to mind is Chris Bonnington.)

I, probably wrongly, assume serious climbers are egocentric risk takers. And most often masochists.

Ed Viesturs is none of these. He’s known as a “nice guy”.

There are very few new insights into what happened in the disaster on Everest 1996. Ed was with the IMAX film Everest team.

I highly recommend it though it’s written for the general public, not the outdoors elite.

No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World’s 14 Highest Peaks

I did not enjoy my one and only true mountaineering adventure, guided to the top of 6000m (20,000ft) Huayna Potosi in Bolivia. Being connected by rope was tedious. Having no input into the speed of the climb, annoying.

Much better are trekking peaks. I scrambled independently 5822m (19,101ft) Misti in Peru. And trekked close to 6000m on the Rongphu glacier off Everest.

Kilimanjaro 5896m (19,344ft) appeals in the same way.

On the rare perfect day you can walk up Aconcagua 6962m (22,841ft), the highest peak outside Asia.

Serious mountaineering above that I’ll have to do vicariously.

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