His passion destroyed a remarkable marriage...............other then that he has lived his dream

OK, this book is not as rip-roaring as Krakauer's Into Thin Air, and yet it's an excellent insight into what makes a mountaineer tick. I was moved by Breashear's account of the Everest '96 disaster, and found his rendering of the survival of Beck Weathers perhaps even more moving than the account in Krakauer's masterful tome. Similarly moving was his account of the recovery of the camera containing the last picture of mountaineer Bruce Herrod, staring into the lens in triumph on the summit of Everest, soon to collapse and die with the very camera in his pocket. The image strikes me as similar in spirit to that of Chris McCandless in front of the bus in Krakauer's Into the Wild.

Breashears' life story is fascinating; and one sometimes wishes that, despite the inherent hardships, that one was raised as an army brat, because they seem to grow up with a special kind of resolve.

There are fascinating accounts of Breashears' early climbs in Colorado and as a crew member on the set in the Italian Dolomites of the 1980's Stallone thriller, "Cliffhanger." And, of course, there's Everest '96, one of the great adventure stories of all time, about which several books have been written.

I don't know what it is about the books I've been choosing lately, or if it's just an indicator of my tenuous emotional state of late [note: in 2009], but this book ultimately moved me to tears, and even if it's not quite the achievement that Krakauer's book is, it is nonetheless a first-rate adventure book as well as a worthy biography. As a sidenote, it baffles me how he could have let such an alluring woman as Veronique Choa slip out of his life. Oh well, I know from experience, it happens.

This is probably a four-star book, at best, but the enjoyment factor was high for me, and mountaineering buffs won't be disappointed.

(KevinR@Ky; edited and amended in 2016)

This guy climbs for the wrong reasons (fame, ego, etc...) and is a bit of a jerk. Nonetheless, he's done some pretty cool climbs over the years. I wouldn't climb with him, but this wasn't the worst book I ever read.

This was a page turner about Breashear's progress as a rock climber who eventually mastered ice climbing and climbed and filmed Everest many times. I really enjoyed this. He came to understand that the risk in climbing was its own reward and the serenity that climbing brought him.