Everest

The West Ridge

By: Thomas Hornbein, Jon Krakauer - foreword

Narrated by: Tom Beyer

In 1963, Jim Whittaker became the first American to summit Everest via the South Col route. Roughly two weeks after Whittaker's achievement, Tom Hornbein and Willi Unsoeld, fellow American mountaineers on the same expedition, became the first climbers ever to summit the world's highest peak via the dangerous and forbidding West Ridge—a route on which only a handful of climbers have since succeeded.

This special fiftieth anniversary edition reintroduces the adventure in a larger format by members of the expedition, including leader Norman G. Dyhrenfurth and team doctor Jim Lester. In addition to a new foreword by Jon Krakauer, this volume also features a new preface by Hornbein along with a series of prefaces he wrote for earlier editions, including the original from 1965.

©1980, 2013 Thomas F. Hornbein; Foreword copyright 2013 by Jon Krakauer (P)2024 Tantor

Great easy listen

love the personal account view and easy listening voice of the narrator. some parts are a little slow but add the details needed to follow the journey

Intrepid and stimulating

This was a drastically different view of the 1963 Everest expedition than was presented by Jim Whittaker. I loved it.

Well done!

Well written and narrated. It felt like you part of the expedition to the top of the world.

Terrible reading

The content is great but I can’t deal with the reader. He speaks as if reading to a kindergarten class and gives terrible accents.

Great Story, Too Much Intro

Everything about this book was great except the 95 minites of forward, FOUR prefaces, and then a prologue. The story didn't start until NINETY FIVE MINUTES into this listen. The prefaces for the first three editions were unnecessary when an even longer one was written for this fourth edition. The entire story is spoiled by the time you get through the introductory materials. definitely better to be read on physical media so you can save all tgat for LAST and also see the pretty pictures.