Climbing Into My Dream

Get the inside scoop on the U.S. space program from an aerospace engineer with more than three decades of experience. Bill Dye is one of the lucky ones. Like so many of his childhood pals, he dreamed of flying jets or being a console guy launching satellites. Unlike so many young boys who wished for a life of adventure amid the romance of space travel, Bills dream became his reality. His boyhood passion for airplanes and rockets, fueled by his parents encouragement, launched him into an exciting, fulfilling career in aerospace. In Dyes often humorous, entertaining memoir, youll get the inside scoop on the U.S. space program from an aerospace engineer with more than three decades of experience. Youll discover how a kid who used to win science fairs and fire off homemade rockets ends up directing the design and development of several spacecraftincluding IKONOS, an Earth-observation satellite that changed the world. He is proof that even the loftiest dreams are attainable with the right opportunities, the right education, and the right attitude. As a fellow aerospace engineer, once I started reading Climbing into My Dream, I couldnt put it down. Many of us from different backgrounds went on this exhausting but exhilarating journey. Bill Dye was the go-to guy who was fun to be with. His story brought back memories of learning the trade. Tom Dougherty, program director (retired), Lockheed Martin

A dramatic account of the deadly avalanche on Everest—and a return to reach the summit. On April 25, 2015, Jim Davidson was climbing Mount Everest when a 7.8-magnitude earthquake released avalanches all around him and his team, destroying their only escape route and trapping them at nearly 20,000 feet. It was the largest earthquake in Nepal in eighty-one years and killed nearly 8,900 people. That day also became the deadliest in the history of Everest, with eighteen people losing their lives on the mountain. After spending two unsettling days stranded on Everest, Davidson's team was rescued by helicopter. The experience left him shaken, and despite his thirty-three years of climbing and serving as an expedition leader, he wasn’t sure that he would ever go back. But in the face of risk and uncertainty, he returned in 2017 and finally achieved his dream of reaching the summit. Suspenseful and engrossing, The Next Everest portrays the experience of living through the biggest disaster to ever hit the mountain. Davidson's background in geology and environmental science makes him uniquely qualified to explain why the seismic threats lurking beneath Nepal are even greater today. But this story is not about “conquering” the world’s highest peak. Instead, it reveals how embracing change, challenge, and uncertainty prepares anyone to face their next “Everest” in life.

From Airplanes To Weddings, What Do Your Dream Symbols Really Mean? How many times have you awakened from an emotional dream convinced of its significance yet baffled by its practical meaning in your everyday life? In this remarkable book, dream doctor Charles Lambert McPhee, founder of the celebrated website askthedreamdoctor.com, helps you unlock the hidden meaning in your dreams and transform your waking life. Drawing on hundreds of thousands of dreams sent to his website, he provides expert interpretations based on years of expertise and experience. Alphabetized for easy reference, filled with more than 160 real-life dreams from people around the world, Ask the Dream Doctor will help you unravel many common dream symbols, including: • Airplane Crash. . . Are your dreams precognitive? Are they warnings? • Car . . . Are you driving your own car [symbol of self]--or allowing someone else to drive it? Is the car in your dream "out of control"? • Chase Nightmares . . .What disturbing feelings are you trying to avoid? Are you procrastinating making a big decision? • House . . . What is your “dream” house like? It may reveal more about your true self than anything in your waking life. • Sex . . .It’s not always about the obvious. Discover what underlies one of the most common metaphors of all. • Tornado . . . Are you in an intense emotional or family conflict? Your dreams may be waking you up to something you haven’t recognized. • Water . . . Learn about the kind of dream that alerts you to see a sleep doctor immediately!

One morning, when she was very young, Sophie Cairns’ lungs tried to kill her. Every three months from the age of three to twelve, asthma sent her to hospital, where she slept in an oxygen tent. What makes someone who struggles to breathe seek out the thin air of high-altitude peaks on every continent on earth?

Wife and mother. Teacher and musician. Marathoner and rock climber. At 66, Dierdre Wolownick-Honnold became the oldest woman to climb El Capitan in Yosemite--and in The Sharp End of Life: A Mother’s Story, she shares her intimate journey, revealing how her climbing achievement reflects a broader story of courage and persistence. Dierdre grew up under the watchful eyes of a domineering mother and realized early on that her parents’ plans for her future weren’t what she wanted for herself. Later, what seemed like a storybook romance brought escape, with new experiences and eye-opening travel, but she quickly discovered that her husband was not the happy-go-lucky man he had first appeared. Adapting as best she could, Dierdre juggled work and raising two young children, encouraging them to be fearlessly confident. She noted with delight how her “little lady” Stasia took it upon herself to look out for her baby brother, and watched in amazement as Alex (Honnold of "Free Solo" fame) started climbing practically before he could crawl. After years of struggle in her marriage and her ultimate divorce, Dierdre found inspiration in her now-adult children’s passions, as well as new depths within herself. At Stasia’s urging, she took up running at age 54 and soon completed several marathons. Then at age 58, Alex led her on her first rock climbs. A world of friendship and support suddenly opened up to her within the climbing “tribe,” culminating in her record-setting ascent of El Cap with her son. From confused young wife and busy but lonely mother to confident middle-aged athlete, Dierdre brings the reader along as she finds new strength, happiness, and community in the outdoors--and a life of learning, acceptance, and spirit.

2018 Colorado Book Awards finalist in Creative Nonfiction, and National Bestseller and Honorable Mention Award Winner in the Outdoor Literature category of the 2017 National Outdoor Book Awards (NOBA) “A beautiful book about family and finding a way to achieve more than you ever thought possible.” —Brad Meltzer, New York Times bestselling author Erik Weihenmayer is the first and only blind person to summit Mount Everest, the highest point on Earth. Descending carefully, he and his team picked their way across deep crevasses and through the deadly Khumbu Icefall; when the mountain was finally behind him, Erik knew he was going to live. His expedition leader slapped him on the back and said something that would affect the course of Erik’s life: “Don’t make Everest the greatest thing you ever do.” No Barriers is Erik’s response to that challenge. It is the moving story of his journey since descending Mount Everest: from leading expeditions around the world with blind Tibetan teenagers to helping injured soldiers climb their way home from war, from adopting a son from Nepal to facing the most terrifying reach of his life: to solo kayak the thunderous whitewater of the Grand Canyon. Along the course of Erik’s journey, he meets other trailblazers—adventurers, scientists, artists, and activists—who, despite trauma, hardship, and loss, have broken through barriers of their own. These pioneers show Erik surprising ways forward that surpass logic and defy traditional thinking. Like the rapids of the Grand Canyon, created by inexorable forces far beneath the surface, No Barriers is a dive into the heart and mind at the core of the turbulent human experience. It is an exploration of the light that burns in all of us, the obstacles that threaten to extinguish that light, and the treacherous ascent towards growth and rebirth.

For the first time the peaks and ranges of the world's wildest continent in one place for all to see! This beautiful work is dedicated to mountain addicts and to amateurs who like to travel far from home, avid for discovering our planet's rare regions, which are still little known. Climbing Antarctica is a unique experience. It is a dream that only few mountaineers have had the privilege to fulfill and that you can now skim, thanks to this very nice book, richly illustrated and remarkably documented. Damien Gildea will let you get be dragged into the rich history of Antarctica mountaineering adventure, from the first explorations in the 19th century until the achievements of today extreme climbers. He will lead you at the very heart of the most impressive and remote mountains of the South Pole... Discovering the incredible Antarctica Mountains, emerging from the white hugeness, will let more than one reader speechless. It is hard to figure out that we are still on Earth! This book is an absolute must-have for all climbers and travellers! ABOUT THE AUTHOR Damien Gidea is a polar mountaineer and explorer. He successfully led seven expeditions in the highest Antarctica Mountains, from 2001 to 2008. He is the author of the book entitled Antarctic Mountaineering Chronology, published in 1998, and of detailed topographical maps of the Livingston Island (2004) and Vinson Mountain (2006). His articles and photographs were published in many periodicals around the world, as the American Alpine Journal or the American magazine called Alpinist. He also led a skiing expedition to the South Pole and took part in several expeditions in the Himalayas, in Karakorum and in the Andes. When he is not exploring, Damien Gildea lives in Australia. EXCERPT Introduction Climbing in Antarctica is a special experience that never fails to affect those fortunate enough to do it. For most of Antarctica’s human history this experience was restricted to those who worked as part of national government Antarctic programs, requiring great financial and logistical efforts. Visitors – and in Antarctica we are all visitors – were a small cog in a vast scientific and political machine. The scope and quality of work done by these programs has been incredible and continues to be so, providing us with critical insights into not only Antarctica but also our world as a whole. However, in purely mountaineering terms, the activity of such operations was understandably limited. Mountaineering merely enabled scientific work, with recreational climbing discouraged and usually unrecorded. In the following pages I hope to preserve at least some of those ascents, as often they have proven to be more significant to those involved than the official scientific record may indicate, and they are part of the rich human history of Antarctica that should be recorded for all to enjoy.