Mountain Tragedy

Author Earl Swift narrates his own powerful story. From the New York Times bestselling author of Chesapeake Requiem comes an intricately plotted tale of two end-to-end adventures through the Appalachian Trail’s twenty-two hundred miles, braided around a third strand, that of the trail’s most...

Available as a value box set amazon.com/dp/B07D4LYDBP (copy and paste the link into your browser) Carolina is impatiently awaiting the return of her man from up North. Her friends are all happily getting on with their lives. Surely her turn must come soon? Has fate taken a hand in Carolina’s life when she takes on a charitable job? Why has no one heard a word from Carolina’s beau? Can tragedy lead the way to a life Carolina had not imagined was waiting for her? Join the girls once again in Bodie town as they tread pathways they could never have imagined when they first made the decision...

The true story behind the events that inspired the major motion picture Only the Brave. A "unique and bracing" (Booklist) first-person account by the sole survivor of Arizona's disastrous 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire, which took the lives of 19 "hotshots" -- firefighters trained specifically to battle...

Some monsters wear tactical gear. Others wear fur. Tony Ward retreated to the freezing peaks of the Beartooth Mountains to escape his grief. Operating as a solitary lookout, he wanted nothing more than to be left alone with the biting wind and the silent snow. His isolation shatters when a dying elk leads him to tracks far too massive to belong to any known animal. Then the storm hits. Trapped in a sudden, brutal blizzard, Tony discovers he is not the only one tracking the beast. A ruthless paramilitary team led by the cold-blooded Commander Reed has descended on the mountain. They are ...

Written on the 20th anniversary of the ’96 Everest disaster, South African photojournalist Nick van der Leek cunningly unravels the devil hiding in the details of a mountaineering classic. In NEVEREST III two guides are investigated for potential dereliction of duty. Was there negligence on the way to the summit, or simple resignation to charismatic leaders, paying clients and a tightly controlled and choreographed summit bid? If so, how and why did it all go wrong, and can anyone really be blamed under the extenuating circumstances? “Unlike NEVEREST II where we sat on the shoulder of a...

Gustav von Aschenbach has built an entire life, and a considerable reputation, on discipline. A distinguished writer, ennobled by his government, widowed young, he has organized every hour of every day around the conviction that great art is achieved through rigorous self-mastery, never through surrender to mere feeling. Exhausted and restless, he travels to Venice for what he tells himself will be simple rest. There, among the guests of his grand hotel, he sees a Polish family — and among them, a boy of extraordinary, almost unbearable beauty. Aschenbach tells himself this fascination is...

In the blistering heart of the Arizona Territory, where the sun burns like judgment and the mountains whisper in tongues older than man, destiny was written in blood and gold. Massacre! opens at the dawn of empire’s collapse — when the Spanish Crown, desperate to reclaim its waning glory, sends General Miguel Peralta and four hundred soldiers north into the uncharted Superstition Mountains. Their mission is simple: find the fabled gold veins whispered about in taverns and temples, mine them in secret, and return to Mexico City before the Americans seize the land. But in this desert, ...

A masterpiece of compelling narrative history, The White Ladder describes the epic rise of mountaineering's world altitude record, a story of ever higher climbs by figures great and small of mountaineering. Daniel Light describes how climbers used revolutionary techniques to launch themselves into the most forbidding conditions. The expeditions illustrate evolutionary changes in climbing style, the advancement of high-altitude science, and the development of mountain climbing as an industry. 

The ice held a secret for ten thousand years. Now, it’s awake. When a high-altitude corporate retreat at an isolated Rocky Mountain lodge is severed from the outside world by a catastrophic whiteout storm, the survivors think their biggest threat is the plummeting temperature. They are wrong. Deep in the abandoned underground research tunnels beneath the ski station, something ancient and hungry has been thawed from the permafrost. It is not a myth. It is Arctodus simus—the giant short-faced bear, an apex predator standing twelve feet tall and built for relentless slaughter. As the ...

Blackthorn Ridge is not on any official map. And what lives there is not in any biology textbook. Carter Digman spent eighteen months searching for a ghost. Armed with a hand-drawn map, high-tech bait stations, and a heavily armed expedition team, he ventured deep into the uncharted canopy of the Pacific Northwest. The goal was simple: prove the ultimate myth is real. But they didn't just find proof. They found an apex predator's territory. And they made the fatal mistake of drawing first blood. When the team's heavy steel cables severely injure a juvenile, the expedition transforms from a ...

On a cold February night in 2007, a devoted father of four and a seventeen-year-old drunk driver both received life sentences. In one violent, devastating instant, both faced a drastically different - and uncertain - future. But as Chris Williams sat in his demolished vehicle, staring at the car that had just caused the death of his wife, his unborn baby, his nine-year-old daughter, and his eleven-year-old son, he committed to do something extraordinary: he would forgive.

The rain had been falling for six days, and somewhere in the back of Nora Vale's mind, a clock was ticking. Briar Creek is an isolated community of eleven hundred people tucked into a crease in the Blue Ridge. For over a century, the people and the mountain have shared a quiet existence. But as relentless storms batter the slopes and the ground reaches its absolute breaking point, that fragile agreement is about to be violently revoked. When the earth finally gives way, it takes the roads, the power grids, and the only routes to safety with it. Now, entirely cut off from the outside world, ...

“In Fernanda Santos’ expert hands, the story of 19 men and a raging wildfire unfolds as a riveting, pulse-pounding account of an American tragedy; and also as a meditation on manhood, brotherhood and family love. The Fire Line is a great and deeply moving book about courageous men and women...

Some things belong in the dark. Search and rescue expert Cal Cintron retreated to the rugged backcountry of the Elkhorn Mountains to escape the ghosts of his past. But when a group of hikers vanishes near an abandoned, restricted section of the wilderness, Cal is forced to face the one thing that terrifies him most: going underground. The missing hikers aren't just lost. They stumbled into a breathing, ancient abyss that shouldn't exist—and woke something that has been waiting in the shadows since the Ice Age. Now, Cal and the remaining survivors are trapped in a claustrophobic ...

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.

Big Black Mountain is a ridge of the Cumberland Mountains and is the highest mountain peak in Kentucky, towering 4,145 feet in elevation. Scotia Coal Company operated four coal mine openings inside and beneath Black Mountain, one of which experienced two devastating methane gas explosions on March 9 and 11, 1976, killing 26 miners.The author, a retired Scotia coal miner, describes his experiences of helping to recover the bodies of eleven of the miners who were killed in the second explosion. The eleven miners were sealed inside the mine for over eight months before they were successfully ...

The Dyatlov Pass Incident delves into one of the most chilling unsolved mysteries of the 20th century. In 1959, nine experienced hikers perished in the Ural Mountains under bizarre and terrifying circumstances. With no definitive explanation—only strange injuries, a tent slashed from the inside, and cryptic clues—their deaths have baffled investigators for decades. This thrilling and informative book explores the chilling events, eerie theories, and supernatural possibilities, keeping readers hooked from the first page. Perfect for mystery lovers of all ages, this is a story that will ...

On December 15, 1967, trauma erupted in West Virginia as the small river town of Point Pleasant had just experienced the deadliest bridge collapse in US history. Early that evening, lives in the Ohio River Valley were forever altered as the Silver Bridge connecting Point Pleasant to Kanauga, Ohio collapsed into the icy river below.

The mountains keep their secrets. Until someone digs them up. In the deep, isolated hollows, the most dangerous thing isn’t the rugged terrain—it’s the people. This compilation features fifteen interconnected tales of local corruption and devastating realities that echo the darkest news reports. Justice isn't always decided in a courtroom; sometimes, it’s settled on a dirt road by a man with no license plates. From a substitute teacher navigating a terrifyingly quiet school, to an estranged granddaughter inheriting a family cemetery with too many graves, to a journalist unearthing a...

On June 10, 2008, Carol Decker walked through the hospital doors a healthy woman with flu-like symptoms and early labor contractions. Three months later, she returned home a blind triple-amputee struggling to bond with a daughter she would never see. Unshattered recounts Carol's fight for survival against sepsis and its life-shattering complications. From excruciating skin grafts to learning how to function in daily life without lower legs, a left hand, and her sight, Carol takes us on a personal and raw, yet inspiring journey.