Beyond the Mountain

WINNER: Boardman Tasker Prize WINNER: Mountain Literature Award, Banff Mountain Book Festival ‘An exceptional book.’ Reinhold Messner calls Steve House the best high-altitude climber in the world today, an honour he declines. ‘Being called the ‘best,’ says Steve, ‘makes me very uncomfortable. My intention is to be as good as I can be. Mountaineering is too complex to be squeezed into a competition. It is simply not something that lends itself to comparison. Climbing is about process, not achievement. The moment your mind wanders away from the task of the climbing at hand will be the moment you fail.’ Beyond the Mountain is the multi-award-winning title from Steve House – arguably the world’s leading high-altitude climber, and author of Training for the Uphill Athlete and Training for the New Alpinism. Steve built his reputation on ascents throughout the Alps, Canada, Alaska, the Karakoram and the Himalaya that have expanded the possibilities of style, speed and difficulty. In 2005, Steve and fellow alpinist Vince Anderson pioneered a direct new route on the Rupal Face of 26,660-foot Nanga Parbat, which had never before been climbed in alpine style. It was the third ascent of the face and the achievement earned Steve and Vince the first Piolet d’Or (Golden Ice Axe) awarded to North Americans. Steve is an accomplished and spellbinding storyteller in the tradition of Maurice Herzog and Lionel Terray. Beyond the Mountain is a gripping read – already a mountain classic. It addresses many issues common to non-climbing life – mentorship, trust, failure, success, goal setting, heroes, partnership – as well as the mountaineer’s heightened experience of risk and the deaths of friends. Beyond the Mountain is a window into the process of a man working to be the best he can be through an endeavour very few can begin to imagine.

Steve House is a world-renowned climber and mountain guide, widely regarded for his clean, light-and-fast style of mountaineering. He has published articles in a number of magazines and journals, including: Climb (UK), Alpinist (US), Rock and Ice (US), Climbing (US), The American Alpine Journal, Gripped (Canada), Canadian Alpine Journal, Vertical (Europe), Montagnes (France) and Desnivel (Spain). His essays have been published in several books including: Contact: Mountain Climbing and Environmental Thinking (ISBN: 9780874177466); and a book about Nanga Parbat edited by Reinhold Messner. He is the co-author of Training for the New Alpinism, with Scott Johnston, and Training for the Uphill Athlete, with Scott Johnston and Kilian Jornet.

Reinhold Messner is one of the world’s greatest mountaineers. He was the first person to climb the world’s fourteen 8,000-metre peaks, made the first ascent of Mount Everest without supplementary oxygen and has made over 3,000 climbs on the world’s mountains. He has crossed the Antarctic, Greenland and Tibet, as well as the Gobi and Takla Makan deserts. Born in 1944, Messner grew up in the Italian Dolomites. He climbed his first mountain at the age of five, with his father, and rapidly became one of Europe’s top mountaineers. A great proponent of Alpine-style climbing, Messner has always chosen to climb ‘by fair means’, preferring small teams and limiting his use of artificial tools so as to experience nature as he finds it. A writer and photographer as well as a mountaineer, Messner has written over fifty books on climbing and the mountains, which have been translated across the globe and won numerous awards. He was a Member of the European Parliament for the Italian Green Party from 1999 to 2004 and now lives in a castle in northern Italy, dedicating his time to his Messner Mountain Museum – five interrelated museums in the South Tyrol dedicated to the art, culture, and peculiarities of mountain regions. He has founded the Messner Mountain Foundation (MMF) in order to support mountain people worldwide.

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