"You're either cruisin' or you're bummin', so you might as well cruise."—Scott Fischer
Mountain climber Scott Fischer's mantra would lead him to scale the highest and most treacherous peaks on earth. Best known as one of the guides who perished near the summit of Mount Everest during the tragic spring of 1996, Scott Fischer became for many an iconic symbol of audacity, hubris, and the limits of human endurance. But to those who knew him well, Scott was much more than an action figure at the heart of a modern-day cautionary tale. Now in this vivid, candid biography, Robert Birkby—one of Scott's close friends—gives us a fascinating in-depth portrait of who Scott Fischer really was and what led him to climb to the top of the world.
"A vivid portrait of a superb athlete whose love of mountain climbing drove everything he did." —Ed Viesturs, author of No Shortcuts to the Top
"A personal, uncritical biography that rounds out the portrait of Fischer sketched in Krakauer's best-seller Into Thin Air." —Bruce Barcott in The New York Times Book Review
"A fitting homage to one of the great outdoor extremists." —Kirkus Reviews
"A much fuller picture of a climber widely critiqued in the high-profile coverage after the Everest tragedy." —Seattle Post Intelligencer
"Birkby succeeds in illuminating the power mountains can exert over the human soul." —Publishers Weekly
Introduction 1
1 Olympus 7
2 Thirty Days to Survival 19
3 A Bunch of Bruces 29
4 Off Belay 43
5 Follow the Rainbow 56
6 The Fallingest Man in Climbing 72
7 The Alaska Factor 84
8 Mountain Madness 104
9 Kilimanjaro the Really Hard Way 115
10 Annapurna Fang 129
11 Rockin' with the Ruskies 142
12 It's All Fun Until Somebody Dies 152
13 Everest North Face 161
14 The Nutrition Expedition 179
15 The Wrong Mountain 201
16 F.O.S. 210
17 K2 in '92 222
18 What Would Hillary Do? 240
19 Everest with Good Style 256
20 The Year Before the Year 276
21 Last Climb 291
22 After the Storm 315
Notes 325
Selected Bibliography 331
Acknowledgments 333
Index 335
Overview
"You're either cruisin' or you're bummin', so you might as well cruise."—Scott Fischer
Mountain climber Scott Fischer's mantra would lead him to scale the highest and most treacherous peaks on earth. Best known as one of the guides who perished near the summit of Mount Everest during the tragic spring of 1996, Scott Fischer became for many an iconic symbol of audacity, hubris, and the limits of human endurance. But to those who knew him well, Scott was much more than an action figure at the heart of a modern-day ...