Beyond the Mountain

Name: Beyond the Mountain
SKU: 148970
Availability: InStock

4.4 | 450 ratings

Price: 15.75

Last update: 12-22-2024

About this item

What does it take to be one of the world's best high-altitude mountain climbers? A lot of fundraising; traveling in some of the world's most dangerous countries; enduring cold bivouacs, searing lungs, and a cloudy mind when you can least afford one. It means learning the hard lessons the mountains teach.

Steve House built his reputation on ascents throughout the Alps, Canada, Alaska, the Karakoram, and the Himalaya that have expanded possibilities of style, speed, and difficulty. In 2005 Steve and alpinist Vince Anderson pioneered a direct new route on the Rupal Face of 26,600-foot Nanga Parbat, which had never before been climbed in alpine style. It was the third ascent of the face and the achievement earned Steve and Vince the first Piolet d'or (Golden Ice Axe) awarded to North Americans.

Steve is an accomplished and spellbinding storyteller in the tradition of Maurice Herzog and Lionel Terray. Beyond the Mountain is a gripping listen, destined to be a mountain classic. And it addresses many issues common to nonclimbing life - mentorship, trust, failure success, goal setting, heroes, partnership - as well as the mountaineer's heightened experience of risk and the deaths of friends. Beyond the Mountain is a window into the process of a man working to be the best he can be.

Oli Mittermaier

Rich and Refreshing Perspective

Reviewed in the United States on May 1, 2013

Beyond the Mountain provides a rich and refreshing perspective on an age-old human pursuit - climbing mountains. This is not your typical, over-dramatized, cliché television documentary showing sherpas hauling gear up Mt. Everest, setting up camps and fixing lines for their wealthy clients to ascend. That's "alpine tourism". Steve House's book is about alpine mountaineering. Stuff a sleeping bag and food into your pack and go. You only take what you can carry.

In Steve's case, that has included climbing 15,000 feet up the Rupal Face of Nanga Parbat (8,126 m/26,660 ft). His ascent (together with climbing partner Vince Anderson) took 6 days up, and 2 days down, an experience that changed him physically, emotionally and spiritually forever. Few have ever attempted this ambitious, light and fast moving climb, and I suspect no one will again for a long, long time.

"Why on earth would you do that?" is the typical question that follows descriptions of such harrowing adventures, and this is precisely why I find his book so compelling. "Climbing a mountain" is a frequently used metaphor in leadership education. The point Steve makes (that most of us forget) is that it's not just about getting to the top. It's about HOW we get there. The journey is where the important lessons are learned. Having others haul our load to the top, including cans of supplemental oxygen, robs us of the experience's spiritual essence.

Beyond the Mountain chronicles Steve's life-long climbing career and his devotion to honing his craft. It's an insiders perspective on the intensity of high-altitude, technical, alpine mountaineering filled with breathtaking photos and detailed accounts of adventures in beautiful, remote parts of the globe. His take-home lesson is straightforward and compelling - "the simpler we make things, the richer the experience becomes." If we're not careful, our culture of "more", "bigger" and "now" can rob our lives of profundity and meaning.

Beyond the Mountain is an eloquent reminder that our biggest growth comes from our most challenging experiences. While many of us wait for those experiences to find us, Steve House has spent a lifetime seeking them out. After reading Beyond the Mountain, you'll want to also.

************

Oli Mittermaier is CEO and founder of EXLI ([...]) providing leadership and emotional intelligence training for individuals, teams and companies.

Jason R

This was easily one of the best books I've read

Reviewed in the United States on June 27, 2016

This was easily one of the best books I've read. I didn't give it five stars due to the back and forth at the end of the book, which other readers have also commented on. At the end I found it hard to keep up and was waiting for a climax that in some ways I never found.

But, what is interesting about this book, and sets it apart from the rest, is the connection to his personal life. There is scene he describes after he completes what is essentially his life's work. The scene is dark and grimy, something most people would not admit, but most can react to in some way. When authors are blunt it makes the book better.

The connection is constant between the "normal" life and climbing, or, the question of "what is the point?" Being an outdoorsman I often find myself asking "why" when it comes to pushing physical limits or the wild. What House does is beyond what most people can comprehend so he tries to answer that question.

I wanted a little bit more at the end, but overall this was a great book.

ReadK

A Classic of Mountaineering Literature

Reviewed in the United States on February 3, 2011

There has never been an American alpinist like Steve House. Fortunately for us, he is not only a skilled athlete, pioneering new routes in a stripped-down style at the cutting edge of modern alpinism; he is also an excellent writer, who bares all in his book Beyond the Mountain in thoughtful prose that is as smooth as his climbing. House takes us along on his journey from novice climber, through punk mountain shredder, to reach the maturity that led to his landmark ascent of Nanga Parbat with his partner Vince Anderson, a climb that few would even contemplate much less complete in such grand style. House not only describes the skills he developed as he took on increasingly difficult objectives, the beauty of the high mountains, and the athletic experience of climbing big mountains by elegant lines, he also lays out with brutal frankness the toll in pain, the death of friends, lost relationships, and the "artistic aesthetic [that] holds suffering in high regard." Why do mountaineers climb? What makes them continue to climb when to do so inevitably leads to pain and loss? House has the insight and the talent as a writer to let us in and shed light on the answers to these questions. Seldom has any mountaineer confronted the territory beyond the mountains so honestly. I highly recommend this book, not only for those interested in the sport, but it is also a great story that the general reader will enjoy of courage, persistence and overcoming obstacles in a never ending quest for excellence.

Willi Prittie

Modern cutting edge alpinism

Reviewed in the United States on March 23, 2021

Few not immersed in it can really understand what cutting edge alpinism is all about. This exceptionally well written book gives that rare look into the heart of a little understood way of life. The good, the bad, the ugly, the sublime, and how very much dedication, effort, time, and sheer hard work goes into the preparation and training for such climbing. It is all told with a refreshing lack of ego or attitude, in a very honest as well as entertaining way.

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