Mountain climbing, like life itself, is not without risk. Some brilliant climbers like Hermann Buhl and Dougal Haston have perished through a momentary lapse of judgement. Too many die young, failing to appreciate that safety lies in the awareness of danger.
But the motivation for mountain climbing is not risk. It is the joy of exploration of the vertical, whether it be a virgin summit, a lonely precipice or simply a new line on a familiar rock face. It is the delicious matching of skill to the difficulties presented by the mountain. It is to heighten the senses in lonely remote places.
With Friends in High Places is Malcolm Slesser's autobiographical account of almost 70 years of mountain exploration on every continent. He recalls perilous situations, such as the ill-fated Pamir expedition of 1962, and extreme locations, including the Arctic and the Tropics.
This is an outstanding book that illuminates the beauty and danger of an environment in which all the obstacles between the individual and nature are removed.
