Below Another Sky : A Mountain Adventure in Search of a Lost Father

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Summary: Definately will become part of my permanent Library
Review: I bought this book after reading Seven Summits which recounted Rick Ridgeway's involvement with Dick Bass's and Frank Well's attempt to be the first to bag the "seven summits".
This is a moving story of not only the loss of Rick Ridgeway's friend and climbing buddy in an avalanche in the himalayas where he also almost died but an account of his return voyage with the friend's twenty year old daughter to where the avalanche had occurred some 18 years before. It is a travel narrative, mountaineering book, great insights on Nepal and Tibet with interesting sidetrips through his memories, trips to Patagonia, being in a Panamanian jail when he was but twenty and what it taught him...etc. You have got to like this guy! A perfect read for the introspective armchair adventure traveller who loves Asia; which is the name of the twenty year old girl who finds her father's grave and her way in life on this trip.

Rating:
Summary: Below Another Sky
Review: The book Below Another Sky by Rick Ridgeway is a book about a man (Rick) and his friends going to various countries and climbing various mountains. Rick is a man who loves to climb and his best friend, Jonathan is a photographer going on a trip to this mountain to get pictures of the mountain. Later, Jonathans dauter, Asia, and Rick set out on their own trip to other mountains. I thought that this book was okay, but it wasn't all that great. I didn't like why he did not mention why he and Asia set off on their journey because that set me off track a little, although, I like hiking and climbing mountainous areas, so it was kind of interesting for me. I would especially recomend this book to people who like adventuresome books and movies.

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Summary: Adventure with Heart
Review: This is the recounting of a trip Rick Ridgeway made with Asia Wright through the Himalayas enroute to searching for her father's grave. Her father was Jonathon Wright, who was killed in an avalanche on Minya Konka when she was an infant. Throughout the journey he tells her of her father's life as well as of his own past as a mountaineer and adventurer. This was a difficult book for me to get through, and it was some time before I could pick it up without my hands shaking. I didn't think it would have such an emotional impact on me, and I'm bemused to think that Jonathon can still affect people when he's been dead for twenty years. We knew Jonathon, and I remember vividly the shock of returning from a trip and receiving a telegram saying he'd been killed. Certainly we were familiar with death's capaciousness, but it was a classic case of, "Why him, of all people? Where's the meaning in this?" It's a curious experience to read a book twenty years later where someone asks those questions about the same person, but we've all known someone who died too soon.

They're difficult questions and Ridgeway does as credible a job of the philosophical answers as anyone can, with his acceptance of life and death, and change. However, his denouement at the end, that we should live each day as if it were our only one, felt flat. We've heard it before and it's been boiled done to a kitchen plaque cliché that I've always found irritating when it's not further explained. I don't think I'd plan on spending my only day on earth wondering if the roof should be redone this year or next and booking dental cleanings, as I'm doing today. My grudge with the cliché is that it seems to imply that we should regret whatever it is we've been doing up to now, rather than accepting that some days are simply going to be filled with the mundane details of living. It also holds an inherent suggestion that we should seek pleasure. But the kind of pleasure that makes life worth living is an elusive phantom and comes only after we've sought experience. Pain or regret may also result, regardless of our intentions. We have to embrace the experience regardless of outcome; if it's pleasurable, it's a bonus and we've earned it. Jonathon tried to focus on the experience rather than the goal or glory at the end, and I think that's what was meant in the book, but perhaps each of us sees it differently.

But Jonathon's effect on people was the result of more than what he did, it was the result of his personality, and Jonathon simply being Jonathon. We all affect the people we contact each day. Whether it's for good or ill is up to us. Partly because of his own innate goodness and partly because of his efforts, Jonathon had a positive effect on the people who know him. The lesson I would take from his life is that we could all have a similar impact if we made the effort to be nice - and I apologize for the lackluster word, but there it is - nice. The circumstances in which I first met him was one where egos could become inflated, inflamed, or deflated in an instant, and the silly posturing and puffy tempers certainly were a contrast to Jonathon's calmness. It's an odd thing, given that I didn't know him that well and it's been a long time, but I am still influenced by him and try (not always successfully!) to behave in difficult situations as he would have. Our lives do indeed affect others.

The book focuses on personalities, and that gives it a heart and poignancy which are often lacking in adventure stories. As for his journey with Asia Wright, it begins in Nepal, continues on to Mount Kailas, across the Chang Tang Plateau in Tibet, and ends at Asia's father's grave. The book is nicely-written and over-all the description is strong enough, although there were places where it lacked the vitality that would really bring an area to life for me. I will say (and this truly is surprising, since he recounts a fair number of disasters, not to mention numerous other assorted miseries) that Rick Ridgeway managed the impossible - he made mountain-climbing sound appealing even to me.