Chris Bonington Mountaineer: A Lifetime of Climbing the Great Mountains of the World

Chris Bonington

Reading this book is a bit like taking a walk down memory lane with an old, beloved friend. Sitting in their front room with a cup of tea on the go, as they get the box of tatty old photos out and tell you about all the times way back when. Way back when… I aided a desperate rescue on the north wall of the Eiger (then made a first ascent on it); when I sat out a stormy Alpine bivouac with only a light down jacket and a poly bag; when I led a team on a first ascent of the southwest face of Everest… Yep, your old mate on this wistful journey is none other than Sir Chris Bonington, one of the most accomplished climbers in the world, and his life story reads like a modern history of climbing. The book is full of photographs from the Fifties and Sixties to the present. Tales of epics, first ascents and retreats are told with simplicity and straightforwardness, a clear awareness of what was at stake, acceptance of the risks and utter commitment to the reasons why. This revised edition has five extra chapters and over 500 photographs and traces a lifetime of extraordinary challenge and discovery. This is a life lived for climbing and the mountains, and if you have an interest in either of those things, it belongs on your bookshelf. Or even better, in your hands, with that cup of tea.