Book Review: High Exposure by David Breashears

Those of you less initiated in rock-climbing or mountaineering may have heard of David Breashers for his cinematography as he is the recipient of four Emmy awards including the IMAX movie Everest (An IMAX movie is a 65 mm movie compared to a 35 mm movie that you usually see in a theatre – in other words it is 80 feet in length and 6 storeys high!).

High Exposure by David Breashears

He has also been part of the team making the famous movie Cliffhanger (starring Sylvester Stallone) which has substantial climbing scenes. His cinematography experience was enhanced in the company of the famous mountaineer and cinematographer Kurt Diemberger (of the award winning book The Endless Knot: a gripping narrative of the the 1986 K2 saga) on the Kangshung Face of Everest in 1981.

Like most western climbers, Breashears started rock-climbing first in his country America and then graduated to mountaineering in the Himalayas. He has been an advocate of free climbing (not using artificial tools like pitons and using rope only to save a fall) in rock-climbing though in mountaineering he has mainly used siege-style climbing compared to the alpine-style. He has been to the summit of Everest four times. The book High Exposure takes us through his journey from his troubled childhood (with an abusive father) to maiden first climbs on the rocks in Colorado. Like most famous mountaineers his married life was also not very successful as he spent more time on the rock and mountains then at home.

From the famous mountaineer George Mallory onward the question remains: Why Climb? For Breashears it is not about the high risk of dangers but about pursuit of excellence and self-knowledge. Danger comes when reason is blinded with ambition.

David Breashears IMAX team was there on the fateful May 10, 1996 when several mountaineers perished on the mountain above camp IV due to various factors like overcrowding, inexperience and client-based commercial climbing. Last three chapters of the book take us through that time and space. Now this is the third book after Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air and Anatoli Boukareev’s The Climb that I have read where the May 10 disaster has been discussed in detail. Jon Krakauer and David Breashears have, I think, wrongly blamed Anatoli Boukareev being too ambitious for climbing Everest without supplemental oxygen. In fact Boukareev was the hero in rescuing several climbers when he himself was extremely tired and so high on the mountain you are not supposed to be hand-holding others for the summit bid. In today’s commercial world even novices are being taken and guaranteed the summit by companies without considering the perils of the mountain.

A must read book for all rock-climbers, mountaineers, adventure lovers and film buffs.

Where Men Win Glory

When I was browsing the Amazon to look for some book to buy I found Where Men Win Glory by Jon Krakauer. Now I have read several of his books on adventure and some on unusual topics like Mormon fundamentalism in Under the Banner of Heaven and the Three Cups of Deceit. Therefore, without going much into details I ordered the book.

When I received the book I found that it had nothing to do with mountaineering. It is about an American - Pat Tillman - who was a National Football League player when the bombings of the Twin Towers happened in 9/11 and out of idealism and patriotism leaves a very promising football career and a multi-million dollar contract to join the elite Rangers of the American Army in 2002. Just two years later though in Afghanistan he is killed in ‘friendly fire’ (when you are mistakenly killed by your own people) though the army hides the fact and makes him out to be a hero in front of the American public.

The story then takes you back to when he was born in 1972. Though till the 9/11 bombings he was not related in anyway to military but the author runs a simultaneous story of the situation developing in Afghanistan as Pat grows up at home. You come to know how the al-Qaeda, Mujaheddin and the Taliban became powerful and strong over the years and not only controlled Afghanistan but also the border areas of Pakistan as well with full support from the ISI.

The book also delved in detail about what happened to Jessica Lynch when she was moving with her convoy in Iraq and was captured and afterwards the forces rescued her. The story circulated was that she fought valiantly against the Iraqi forces which she refuted and said she never fired a single shot and was in fact knocked unconscious when her vehicle crashed. Krakauer also tells the story about the Battle of Nasiriyah in Iraq where again 18 marines were killed in friendly-fire when the American Air Force bombed its own men by mistake.

The books picks pace after Tillman reaches Afghanistan and the last part of the book is gripping. However, some of the escapades of Tillman in the earlier part of his life seemed irrelevant in the book and the book could have been more interesting with it being 100 pages shorter than the current 383 pages.