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For generations of resolute adventurers, from George Mallory to Sir Edmund Hillary, Tenzing Norgay to Jon Krakauer, Mount Everest and the world's greatest peaks have provided the ultimate testing ground. As the world's fascination with mountaineering reaches a fever pitch, the question remains: Why climb? In High Exposure, elite mountaineer and acclaimed filmmaker David Breashears answers with an ... More

For generations of resolute adventurers, from George Mallory to Sir Edmund Hillary, Tenzing Norgay to Jon Krakauer, Mount Everest and the world's greatest peaks have provided the ultimate testing ground. As the world's fascination with mountaineering reaches a fever pitch, the question remains: Why climb? In High Exposure, elite mountaineer and acclaimed filmmaker David Breashears answers with an intimate and captivating look at his life. Breashears's passion for climbing began on the cliffs of Boulder, Colorado -- and nearly ended on the south side of Everest in 1996.

From childhood, Breashears felt irresistibly drawn to the Himalayas' promise of adventure and unforgiving demands on body, mind, and soul. Readers learn of his turbulent early years and his training on the rock before he was dubbed the Kloberdanz Kid. While most American teens were reveling in the recklessness of the seventies, Breashears indulged in a potent mixture of discipline, passion, and drive to pioneer the improbable Perilous Journey in Colorado, ascend Half Dome in Yosemite, and attempt Everest's unclimbed Kangshung Face in Tibet. Along the way, the intense young man apprenticed on film shoots and gradually took to the camera himself, relishing its physical and artistic demands. He was soon consumed with capturing on film the unsurpassed beauty and profound human experience he witnessed as a climber. That he would someday film at the top of the world with a forty-two-pound camera during the Everest IMAX Filming Expedition surprised no one who knew him: He was always looking to the next challenge, his eyes on the highest horizons.

For David Breashears, climbing has never been a question of bravery: Rather, it is the pursuit of excellence and a quest for self-knowledge. Danger comes, he argues, when ambition blinds reason. The stories this world-class climber and great adventurer tells will surprise you. From discussions of egotism and competitiveness on the heights -- despite the brotherhood of the rope -- to a frank description of mistakes made during the 1996 Everest tragedy, this personal history goes beyond Mallory's famous quip "Because it's there" to find meaning and hope at the top of the world.

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