KDL Recommends

Forever on the Mountain: The Truth Behind One of Mountaineering's Most Controversial and Mysterious Disasters

ISBN: 0393061744

Title: Forever on the Mountain: The Truth Behind One of Mountaineering's Most Controversial and Mysterious Disasters

Author: James M. Tabor

KDL Description:

Documents the tragic deaths of seven mountaineers who aspired to climb Mt. McKinley in 1967, revealing practices of cover-up and finger-pointing that prevented an effective rescue attempt, in an account based on team survivor interviews, government documents, and unpublished personal writings.

Amazon Description: In July 1967, seven young men—members of Joe Wilcox’s twelve-man expedition—died on Mt. McKinley, North America’s highest peak.

Ten days passed with no rescue attempt, while more than half an expedition was stranded and dying at 20,000 feet during a vicious Arctic storm. The bodies were never recovered. And, for reasons that have remained cloudy, there was no proper official investigation of the catastrophe.

This book begins as a classic tale of men against nature, gambling—and losing—on one of the world’s starkest and stormiest peaks. Reckoning by lives lost, it was history’s third-worst mountaineering disaster when it occurred—but elements of finger pointing, incompetence, and cover-up make this disaster unlike any other. James M. Tabor draws on previously untapped sources: personal interviews with survivors and those involved in the aftermath, unpublished diaries and letters, and government documents. He consults not only mountaineers but also experts in disciplines including meteorology, forensics, and psychology. What results is the first full account of the tragedy that ended a golden age in mountaineering. Maps; 8 pages of illustrations.