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good on a plane or on the beach). I was drawn into the world of mountaineering after I read "Into Thin Air", and have since become quite the armchair mountain climber. I found this book to be fascinating and an easy, quick read (ie. After reading this I was encouraged to go on and read more in depth stories about some of these events that Potterfield describes. I highly recommend this book.
The first two chapters tell stories of climbs in which Potterfield was not involved. Throughout the book Potterfield plays the dramatic angle, despite the fact that two of the stories are told from interviews with other climbers and he was therefore in no position to comment on the detailed emotional state of the participants. He never again mentions his buddy who, it seems , dropped him. I suspect that this process must have taken a year or perhaps more and I can only imagine the dread that I would feel if I had been one of the rescuers to have this guy hounding me for my side of the story. One serious gripe I have with this book is that I question the validity of details in story number one, the Alaskan struggle of a climber whose two partners were killed in an avalanche. No doubt this climber suffered and I feel for the families of the lost climbers, but letting Potterfield butcher the story this way really sapped my interest and made me wish I had been able to get the story from someone who I did not regard as a flake.
He would have done well to limit each of these stories to the length of a short magazine article. This story does not merit publication on its own, much less inclusion in this book. I was struck by what I would call embelishments masquerading as detail. Potterfield missed the mark with the story of climbing K2, since it lacked focus and a single pivotal moment in which something went wrong, as compared to the other two stories. These ersatz details supposedly describe the first hand account of a badly injured climber descending a huge and complicated mountain face.
Peter Potterfield sells himself as a magazine editor and writer. The Introduction to the book is a rehash of a mountain mishap as well. It appears that Potterfield spent a great deal of time interviewing all sorts of people involved in the rescue effort. Potterield ostensibly presents three stories of how wrong things can go on the mountains. As to the rest of the book, Potterfield's description of a season on K2 has been described in much greater detail elsewhere and by people who were in a better position to comment on events. The repetitive explanations and re-wording of events within each story tried my patience. This was particularly annoying in this case, where he descibes his buddy as using a new belay device called aTuber. He might just as easily have included statements like; "thirty feet left on an iced-over bulge of greenish rock with thin pink veins running through it", or "20 feet up to a 10-inch tall rock that resembled the face of norwegien garden gnome" or "15 feet around a bulge before continuing across a 12 yard wide snowfield covered in a 2 inch crust of off-color snow".
In The Zone contains three unrelated stories (chapters) of climbing. The final story of Potterfield's own fall and subsequent rescue on Chimney Rock should have been assigned a page limit of perhaps 10 pages. I found the story somewhat enjoyable until Potterfield doubled or tripled the story length with re-examination of events and a complete re-writing of the story from various other people's perspectives. In the end Potterfield does not describe or analyse the fundamental question, "what happened at the belay". Potterfield presents clearly imaginary details, presumably gleaned from an interview with the climber weeks, months, or perhaps years after the events took place. Is he insinuating that the Tuber was faulty or improperly used and hence this led to his fall. The third chapter is a first hand account followed by retrospective explanation of the surrounding events. Potterfield does a diservice to all climbers by not addressing this issue.
I do not provide quotes from the book, but throughout the discussion of the injured climber's descent, Potterfield includes descriptions that ring false. Certainly the overall description of events is correct, but get real, I can't remember such details about a climb under normal circumstances. Another annoying tendancy of Potterfield throughout the book, and particularly in this story is his use of manufacturer's names to describe pieces of equipment. In The Zone, by Peter Potterfield is poorly written and readers are advised to better spend their time reading a host of other books about mountain tragedies and skip this one.
Far more important - and more interesting - is the skill and effort that went into rescuing him. Potterfield's own story, I personally think it's quite reasonable for him to focus on the rescue rather than the cause of the accident.
An avalanch swept Coombs and his two partners off the side of the mountain, incredibly he survived and, dispite injuries and lost equipment, managed to walk out under his own power. The first story, that of Colby Coombs on Alaska's Mount Foraker, is the most intense of the three.
As for Mr. Motivated not simply by a desire to live but by the knowledge that if he died too his dead partners' friends and families would never know what had happened to them.
Bullheaded persistance in the face of physical pain worked for Scott Fischer on K2 but on Everest in '96 the same trait caused his death. A mistake was made certainly but what's the point in placing blame.
I can't say I noticed any problems with his writing style either.
When I was in college, one of my dear friends became paralyzed after a mountain climbing accident. For that, I enjoyed this book. I seek to understand it but abhor the senseless loss when something goes wrong and claims the lives of these magnificent men and women, leaving in their wake their loved ones and friends to forever try and rationalize their death.While those of you felt this book lacked accountability and content, I lack the experience in mountain climbing to be so critical of the stories projected by the author.
I suppose my friend's accident spurred my curiosity but I believe that my early interest in the sport was initiated by fear and wonder. I feel no need to ask too many questions in respect to faults, for I know so very little about the sport. It was a shocking experience because I was very unfamiliar with the sport at the time.
I was able to experience through my imagination what it must have felt like to live through these mountaineering challenges. I am fascinated by the mountains that attract those individuals who feel compelled to conquer them. The entire sport enthralls and repells me.
I simply held the stories in my mind, reflected on their enormity and danger, and appreciated the skills of rescuers and the drive of certain people to climb to the highest mountain and breathe the thinest of air. Quite simply, I appreciated reading the stories with my feet planted firmly on my floor.
When I was in college, one of my dear friends became paralyzed after a mountain climbing accident. For that, I enjoyed this book. I seek to understand it but abhor the senseless loss when something goes wrong and claims the lives of these magnificent men and women, leaving in their wake their loved ones and friends to forever try and rationalize their death.While those of you felt this book lacked accountability and content, I lack the experience in mountain climbing to be so critical of the stories projected by the author.
I suppose my friend's accident spurred my curiosity but I believe that my early interest in the sport was initiated by fear and wonder. I feel no need to ask too many questions in respect to faults, for I know so very little about the sport. It was a shocking experience because I was very unfamiliar with the sport at the time.
I was able to experience through my imagination what it must have felt like to live through these mountaineering challenges. I am fascinated by the mountains that attract those individuals who feel compelled to conquer them. The entire sport enthralls and repells me.
I simply held the stories in my mind, reflected on their enormity and danger, and appreciated the skills of rescuers and the drive of certain people to climb to the highest mountain and breathe the thinest of air. Quite simply, I appreciated reading the stories with my feet planted firmly on my floor.
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