Ed Douglas

An epic story of peoples, cultures and adventures among the world's highest mountains. Spanning millennia, from its earliest inhabitants to the present conflicts over Tibet and Everest, the book is a soaring account of resilience and conquest, discovery and plunder, oppression and enlightenment at the 'roof of the world*'

Into the Land of the Gods

Himalaya

A Human History

David Rose

The Triumph and Tragedy of Alison Hargreaves (Adventure Press)

Regions of the Heart

Mountaineers

In 1953, Tenzing Norgay was at the heart of the successful British Everest expedition as leader of the Sherpas whose hard work brought victory and as one of the two lead climbers to reach the top. But behind Tenzing’s radiant smile is an untold story of courage, tragedy, and ambition, of a man who overcame incredible odds just to reach the bottom of the mountain. Born in a sacred Tibetan valley in the shadow of Everest, Tenzing’s long journey led him from life as an illiterate yak herder to become the friend of Nehru, feted by monarchs and presidents all over the world. Set against the backdrop of one of the greatest chapters in the history of exploration, Tenzing: Hero of Everest recounts the jubilant moments at the summit: “Tenzing was effusive, putting an arm around Hillary’s shoulders, and thumping him on the back with infectious delight. Hillary joined in.... Now all below them...the valleys where Tenzing had grown up. ‘It was such a sight as I had never seen before,’ he said, ‘and would never see again—wild, wonderful, and terrible. But terror was not what I felt. I loved the mountains too well for that. I loved Everest too well.’” Mountaineering historian Ed Douglas reveals for the first time Tenzing’s long climb from obscurity. Drawing on extensive interviews with family members, climbing partners, and members of the Sherpa community in Darjeeling and Nepal, the book chronicles his rise to fame and the aftermath of his triumph. The result is a wealth of new material about a man who made his people famous and whose life was the stuff of legend.

Hero of Everest, a Biography of Tenzing Norgay

Tenzing

If there is one mountain that is known across the whole world, it must be the highest - Everest. To the people who live at its feet she is Chomolungma, Goddess Mother of the World. The disappearance of George Mallory and Andrew Irvine close to the summit in 1924 lent the mountain a tragic romanticism, of young men risking everything for a dream. When Norgay Tenzing and Ed Hillary became the first men to stand on the summit in 1953, it was the crowning glory for the coronation of Elizabeth II. But nearly fifty years on, there are scores of ascents nearly every season. There are stories of bodies and heaps of garbage abandoned on the slopes, of the loss of cultural identity among the Sherpas and Tibetans who live at the foot of Everest. Ed Douglas spent parts of 1995 and 1996 travelling in Nepal and Tibet, talking to politicians and environmentalists, to mountaineers and local people. He found a poor region struggling to develop, and encountering environmental problems far greater than rubbish left by climbers. Local people are resourceful and cultured, reliant on the work the mountaineers and the mountain provide, but striving to find a balance between the new and the old.

Travels Round Everest

Chomolungma Sings the Blues

On 14 June 1990, at Raven Tor in the Derbyshire Peak District, twenty-four-year-old Ben Moon squeezed his feet into a pair of rock shoes, tied in to his rope, chalked his fingers and pulled on to the wickedly overhanging, zebra-striped wall of limestone. Two minutes later he had made rock-climbing history with the first ascent of Hubble, now widely recognised as the world's first F9a. Born in the suburbs of London in 1966, Moon started rock climbing on the sandstone outcrops of Kent and Sussex. A pioneer in the sport-climbing revolution of the 1980s and a bouldering legend in the 1990s, he is one of the most iconic rock climbers in the sport's history, In Statement, Moon's official biography, award-winning writer Ed Douglas paints a portrait of a climbing visionary and dispels the myth of Moon as an anti-traditional climbing renegade. Interviews with Moon are complemented with insights from family and friends and extracts from magazines and personal diaries and letters. 'Ever since I first set foot on rock at the tender age of seven years, climbing has been the most important thing in my life. In fact I would go so far as to say it is my reason for living and as long as I am able to climb I hope I will. It is from climbing I draw my inspiration for life.'

The Ben Moon Story

Statement

He was brought up in a child abuse without the love and bitterness and also hatred without friends and without a mothers love. Then one day three days before Christmas God came into his life in the year of 1975 and gave him a new life and a home and a new family, into the family GOD and a most beautiful wife with lots of love and the year of 1992 Friday the 13th We became married. Her name is Jennifer R. Douglas.

Tidbits of Gold In God's Holy Words

No Peace Within

Hero of Everest

Discover the powerful story of one woman's lifelong dedication to adventure and determination to succeed, as featured in the brand new BBC2 documentary The Last Mountain 'I shed a tear as I read this . . . I'll admit that I did not do so when I originally heard of her death. The difference? This book' INDEPENDENT ______ Alison Hargeaves was one of the finest climbers of her generation. But in 1995, she died during a violent storm on K2. On her death she was vilified by media outrage that a wife and mother would take such extreme risks. This is the story of a woman with an astonishing determination to be the best that she could. A woman driven to succeed just to secure a future for herself and her family. ______ 'A riveting and incredibly moving story' Irish News 'Few realized the extent of her inner turmoil - and her courage. A very moving biography of an extraordinary woman with an extraordinary talent and determination' Daily Telegraph 'A sensitive and intelligent book . . . Rose and Douglas recuse Hargreaves from the crude distortions of those who wanted to vilify or venerate her' Sunday Telegraph

The Triumph And Tragedy of Alison Hargreaves

In 1951 the Peak District was designated the UK¿s first national park: a commitment to protect and preserve our countryside and wild places. Sandwiched between Manchester and Sheffield, and sitting at the base of the Pennines, it is home to Kinder Scout, Britain¿s most popular `mountain¿, a beautiful yet featureless and disorientating plateau which barely scrapes the 600-metre contour, whose lower slopes bore witness in 1932 to a movement of feet, a pedestrian rebellion, which helped shape modern access legislation: the Kinder Mass Trespass. But Kinder Scout¿s story is about much more than the working class taking on the elite. Marked by the passage of millions of feet and centuries of farming, a graveyard for lost souls and doomed aircraft, this muchloved mountain is a sacred canvas on which mankind has scratched and scraped its likeness for millennia. It is a record of our social and political history, of conflict and community. Writer Ed Douglas and photographer John Beatty are close friends and have a shared history with Kinder going back decades. In this unique collaboration they reveal the social, political, cultural and ecological developments that have shaped the physical and human landscape of this enigmatic and treasured hill. Kinder Scout: The People¿s Mountain is a celebration of a northern English mountain and our role in its creation.

The People¿s Mountain

Kinder Scout

A magisterial history of the Himalaya: an epic story of peoples, cultures, and adventures among the world’s highest mountains. For centuries, the unique and astonishing geography of the Himalaya has attracted those in search of spiritual and literal elevation: pilgrims, adventurers, and mountaineers seeking to test themselves among the world’s most spectacular and challenging peaks. But far from being wild and barren, the Himalaya has been home to a diversity of indigenous and local cultures, a crucible of world religions, a crossroads for trade, and a meeting point and conflict zone for empires past and present. In this landmark work, nearly two decades in the making, Ed Douglas makes a thrilling case for the Himalaya’s importance in global history and offers a soaring account of life at the "roof of the world." Spanning millennia, from the earliest inhabitants to the present conflicts over Tibet and Everest, Himalaya explores history, culture, climate, geography, and politics. Douglas profiles the great kings of Kathmandu and Nepal; he describes the architects who built the towering white Stupas that distinguish Himalayan architecture; and he traces the flourishing evolution of Hinduism, Islam, and Buddhism that brought Himalayan spirituality to the world. He also depicts with great drama the story of how the East India Company grappled for dominance with China’s emperors, how India fought Mao’s Communists, and how mass tourism and ecological transformation are obscuring the bloody legacy of the Cold War. Himalaya is history written on the grandest yet also the most human scale—encompassing geology and genetics, botany and art, and bursting with stories of courage and resourcefulness.

Himalaya: A Human History

‘How much risk is worth taking for so beautiful a prize?’ The Magician’s Glass by award-winning writer Ed Douglas is a collection of eight recent essays on some of the biggest stories and best-known personalities in the world of climbing. In the title essay, he writes about failure on Annapurna III in 1981, one of the boldest attempts in Himalayan mountaineering on one of the most beautiful lines – a line that remains unclimbed to this day. Douglas writes about bitter controversies, like that surrounding Ueli Steck’s disputed solo ascent of of the south face of Annapurna, the fate of Toni Egger on Cerro Torre in 1959 – when Cesare Maestri claimed the pair had made the first ascent, and the rise and fall of Slovenian ace Tomaz Humar. There are profiles of two stars of the 1980s: the much-loved German Kurt Albert, the father of the ‘redpoint’, and the enigmatic rock star Patrick Edlinger, a national hero in his native France who lost his way. In Crazy Wisdom, Douglas offers fresh perspectives on the impact mountaineering has on local communities and the role climbers play in the developing world. The final essay explores the relationship between art and alpinism as a way of understanding why it is that people climb mountains.

Character and fate: eight essays on climbing and the mountain life

The Magician's Glass

The Magician¿s Glass by award-winning writer Ed Douglas is a collection of eight recent essays on some of the biggest stories and best-known personalities in the world of climbing. In the title essay, he writes about failure on Annapurna III in 1981, one of the boldest attempts in Himalayan mountaineering on one of the most beautiful lines ¿ a line that remains unclimbed to this day. Douglas writes about bitter controversies, like that surrounding Ueli Steck¿s disputed solo ascent of the south face of Annapurna, the fate of Toni Egger on Cerro Torre in 1959 ¿ when Cesare Maestri claimed the pair had made the first ascent, and the rise and fall of Slovenian ace Tomaz Humar. There are profiles of two stars of the 1980s: the much-loved German Kurt Albert, the father of the `redpoint¿, and the enigmatic rock star Patrick Edlinger, a national hero in his native France who lost his way. In Crazy Wisdom, Douglas offers fresh perspectives on the impact mountaineering has on local communities and the role climbers play in the developing world. The final essay explores the relationship between art and alpinism as a way of understanding why it is that people climb mountains.

Ed Douglas

About

Books

Join the club