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Summary: The most powerful account of Everest I have ever read.
Review: It's about time the world heard a woman's account of the 1996 Everest tragedy. Ms. Gammelgaard delivers the most poignant and moving account to date. Unlike her male counterparts, she is not afraid to delve deeply into her psyche and emotions and shares with the reader her inspiring perspective of Everest and of the greater world we live in.
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Summary: From Publishers Weekly, May 24, 1999
Review: STARRED REVIEW in Publishers Weekly, May 24, 1999Climbing High: A Woman's Account of Surviving the Everest Tragedy Lene Gammelgaard, Seal, $25 (224p) ISBN 1-58005-023-9 "Months before Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air conquered bestseller lists, Gammelgaard, a member of the 1996 Mountain Madness Mt. Everest expedition, wrote an account of the catastrophe that became a bestseller in Denmark and is at last available in English. Those who have followed the controversy surrounding the tragedy will welcome this even-handed version. A lawyer and psychotherapist, Gammelgaard intended to become the first Scandinavian woman to climb Everest. Her physical and mental training for a grueling ascent without oxygen (a publicity stunt that was later aborted) may have saved her life: she climbed quickly and reached the summit early. During the team's descent in the deadly snowstorm, she was also able to trade her full canister of oxygen for a weaker teammate's nearly empty one. Gammelgaard offers keen insights into the motivations and characters of the lead climbers and guides, and frankly discusses the "megalomania" that drove her to risk her life. Dismissing accusations that hers was a glamour expedition for wealthy amateurs, she emphasizes that her co-climbers were accomplished mountaineers and that the high price of admission paid for the best quality food, equipment and support team. Still, she has powerful regrets about the loss of life, confessing, 'I just didn't know how high a price the Mother Goddess of the World would exact to show us humans the consequences of hubris.'" Photos. 7-city author tour. (July)
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Summary: Yes, I am sure that this is what it was like.
Review: I've just finished reading Climbing High and it is my favorite book describing the tragedy on Mt. Everest in the pre-monsoon of 1996. This is the book that I recommend to non-climbers to help them understand what it is like to climb at high altitudes. Krakauer's Into Thin Air had too much speculation for my taste. Boukreev in The Climb didn't speculate but instead strictly described what he saw and did with no emotion. Lene Gammelgaard keeps the speculation to a minimum but also describes her feelings at different stages of the climb. Yes, I am sure that this is what it was like. - R.J. Secor, author of Denali: A Climbing Guide, Aconcagua: A Climbing Guide and High Sierra: Peaks, Passes, and Trails
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Summary: Read This Book After You Read Into Thin Air and The Climb
Review: This book is very valuable to read in combination with "Into Thin Air" and "The Climb." These two books have more details on what happened up on Mount Everest during the tragedy. This book is focused more on Lene's personal journey during, before and after the Everest tragedy. It was an amazing journey and she was very determined and brave.
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Summary: Hey Lene, did you ever pay Mountain Madness?
Review: I haven't read this book but I've read Krakauer & Boukreev at least 7 times each. It is public knowledge that Lene G. did not pay Mountain Madness the full fee to be guided up the mountain. Ask Karen Dickenson. Maybe that's why Fischer's expedition had few (and inferior) radios. Hopefully LG paid Mountain Madness (after the fact) with the profits from her book. Otherwise she's just a user who used Fischer's good nature to sleaze her way into his expedition. Even if she paid, it's too late. I have zero respect for her. I would like to read her book but I won't buy it.
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Summary: if you ignore the psychobabble...
Review: The disjointed "dispatch" style put me off a little at first, but once you get used to it, this book hums right along. Although her writing is technically not up to par with others who've written about May 1996, Gammelgaard gave this reader a very real sense of how a climber might feel. I simply ignored the psychogibberish (she operates some sort of rehab clinic, so the feel-good inner-god hogwash is to be expected) and the endless references to "Sagamartha, Mother Goddess of the Earth" and enjoyed the book. Of course, I borrowed it from my library, so I might not be as kind if I shelled out real money for it. So pay those overdue fines, and give it a try.
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Summary: Climbing high , writing low
Review: In "Climbing High" Lene Gammelgaard, a Danish mountaineer, becomes the first Scandanavian woman to summit Mount Everest. The book is essentially a chronicle of that historic achievement. This is another in the long line of books that deal with the storm of 1996 that wiped out a number of great climbers and their clients. So far so good. The problems start right away for Gammelgaard when she starts to write.
The book is written in a disjointed "what I did on my summer vacation" sort of way. There is little attempt at anything remotely resembling prose. Each paragraph is tersely written in a notepad jotting sentence structure. Gammelgaard makes a number of rookie grammatical errors that cry out for editing. For example, "I, myself, have great difficulty..." As Strunk and White would say, who else would I be other than myself. Another goes, "Gonna be fun...". Even my six-year-old knows that gonna is not a proper word.
As if this is not enough, Gammelgaard also throws in a few cheesy existential observations that shed no light on the true motivations of semi-suicidal mountaineers. To wit, "I seek solitude, to connect with inner peace. Tai Chi among the giants of the universe. Belonging. Absolute serenity." I wonder how much solitude and inner peace Gammelgaard had while performing bodily functions in full view of male expedition members.
There is very little to be gained by reading this book other than a personal profile and chronicle of Gammelgaards achievement. The book sheds no further light on the 1996 tragedy. I recommend passing on this one.
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Summary: Me, me me......
Review: Lene Gammelgaard survived the 1996 debacle on Mt Everest that left nine people dead. Involved were people from all walks of life who traveled to Nepal from around the world. However, I would say that 80 percent of the book dwells on Ms Gammelgaard and her bubble of "feelings" about her situation, all the while oblivious to events and people around her except inasmuch as they fall within her beam of self-focus. I found her initial insistence on summiting Everest without O's childishly arrogant and irresponsible. Having never topped an "Eight," it shows Ms. Gammelgaard's lack of judgment to think she could go to the highest of them all without the life-saving supplement. Did she put herself on a par with Scott Fischer (who, by the way, climbed WITH O's that day), Anatoli Boukreev, Ed Viesturs? Apparently so. Fortunately, for both herself and the others, she was persuaded by Boukreev to abandon this folly. This incident is the most salient example of similar frivilous behaviors recounted in a primitive journal style that seems not to have profited from much editing. However, her narrow point of view and poor writing skills can in no way diminish Ms.Gammelgaard's accomplishment which is extraordinary under any circumstance. Unlike others, she was dragged neither up nor down the mountain; she made it under her own steam with little complaint and even sacrificed her oxygen cannister to a struggling climber during the descent. What made this book worth two stars was it's relation to the event. Having read everything else available on the 1996 climb, it is interesting and informative to add yet another point of view. I was disappointed that Ms Gammelgaard's was so limited.
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