Even Higher Than Everest

Aiming to inform and entertain a broad readership, the tale follows Garland, a young American journalist, as she acts as PA to a notorious heiress Lucy Houston. On the steam yacht Liberty, Garland’s romances intrigue her employer who agrees to sponsor a team of prestigious aviators and five aircraft. They will fly to India and stay with a Maharaja during their three visits the world’s highest mountains. Chock-full of colorful aristocrats, pilots, engineers and supernumeraries from the British and Indian elite, the expedition is set up in Mayfair. After tests in the West Country the crews fly to Purnea. Despite many bizarre setbacks, the pilots take their open-cockpit biplanes into dangerous freezing gales over the Himalayas. Everest is conquered by air and an Oscar is awarded to the film for its sheer audacity. Lucy Houston DBE was the extraordinary woman, a talented dancer and charmer of men, who had the vision and the means to dispatch her own expedition to fly even higher than Everest. Drawn to stories of an epic nature, the author was inspired by a chance meeting with Sherpa Tenzing and Lord Hunt, 1953 expedition leader. From them he learned how the aerial photos taken by Lady Houston’s pilots had been studied carefully in their assault planning. This work is his personal outcome of that long distant meeting. In researching this story, the author offers gratitude and acknowledgment to the many sources including family members, mountaineers, engineers and pilots who all provided valuable input about the true events of the flight. The Flight Expedition was successful because highly experienced men and women were involved. All had survived the horrendous years of the Great War and were by nature, confident, bold and determined in their various roles for the expedition. With such colourful characters involved, it seemed logical to relate events from different points of view, taking the reader along the many paths that any expedition must follow towards achieving its ultimate goal. Revised for the the 90th Anniversary of the first flight.

Few challenges remain for Earth-bound adventurers, but do not fear - the Solar System abounds with weird and wonderful places to explore. In this unique guidebook, Paul Hodge takes us on a tour of the most spectacular sites in the Solar System. His vivid descriptions of the challenges provide a compelling introduction to extra-terrestrial environments. Starting with a climb of Mars' Mt. Olympus, much higher than Everest, you will be taken on imaginary expeditions to such exotic places as the Moon's Alpine Valley, Venus' precipitous and scorching Mt. Maxwell, a table mountain on Io, the snows of Saturn's rings and Miranda's incredibly high, icy cliff. You will be treated to a descent into a fabulous canyon on Mars, one that dwarfs the Earth's Grand Canyon, and will explore the rock lakes and terraces of Copernicus, a giant crater on the Moon. Who knows - one day these adventures may really be done!

Higher than Everest paints an uncompromising portrait of Tendi Sherpa, who has successfully climbed twenty-one mountains over 8,000m, including fourteen ascents of Everest. This young father, part of the elite group of Nepalese guides, embodies the new generation of Sherpas who are taking their destiny into their own hands. In the numerous conferences he holds throughout the world, he never hesitates to denounce the amateurism and obsession of certain people determined to climb Everest, as well as the over-crowding of the sacred Himalayan mountains. As a child, the man who would go on to save many lives on the Roof of the World once dreamed of becoming a monk, and from his years at the monastery, he still retains a deep attachment to Buddhism and its many rituals. Resolutely looking towards the future, but also concerned about respecting the environment and traditions, Tendi regularly returns to the secluded valley of Khembalung, the land of his ancestors, never forgetting where it is he has come from.

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.

Reaching the summit of Earth's highest peak, Mount Everest, is a feat that most will never realize. However, readers will feel like they're gasping for air alongside the extreme athletes featured in this book. This text fully explores the history of expeditions up Everest as well as the intense training and unavoidable dangers that thrill seekers must face. Astounding achievements are included, such as climbing Everest blind and reaching the peak without oxygen, while breathtaking photographs will transport readers to the top of the world.

Hidden behind the Himalayas and ruled over by a God-king, Tibet has always cast a powerful spell over travellers from the West. In this remarkable, and ultimately tragic narrative, Peter Hopkirk recounts the forcible opening up of this medieval land during the nineteenthand twentieth centuries, and the extraordinary race between agents, soldiers, missionaries, mountaineers, explorers, and mystics from nine different countries to reach Lhasa, Tibet's sacred capital. His story concludes with the ultimate act of trespass - the Chinese invasion of 1950.