TO TOUCH THE SKY

An attempt to scale Mount Everest results in mass tragedy in Oderman’s memoir.

The author visited Nepal in 2014 in the shadow of Sagarmatha, “goddess of the sky,” better known in the West as Everest, in the hopes of scaling the smaller but still imposing Island Peak. Nearing 65, he worried he was approaching the age where mountain climbing would be infeasible. Also present in Nepal was Joby Ogwyn, a daredevil attempting a feat of unparalleled audacity: leaping from the top of Everest in a wingsuit for a television special, Everest Jump Live, to be broadcast in over 200 countries. Oderman ultimately decided not to attempt the climb. As he returned home, he learned that a terrible accident had befallen the Sherpa porters carrying supplies in preparation for the special: A massive avalanche had descended, killing 16 in what Oderman describes as “the deadliest single accident in the history of Mount Everest.” Oderman’s descriptions are visceral, vividly conjuring precipitous slopes, thinning air, and the thunderous collapse of huge shards of ice. Though lacking in poetic flair, the narrative is keenly attuned to the physical and psychological aspects of mountain climbing. Oderman’s description of hallucinations on the mountains may remind readers of Nan Shepherd’s classic The Living Mountain (1977), and he vividly describes the often devastating effects of the Everest-scaling industry on the local Sherpa community. As Mark Synnott did in The Third Pole (2021),he celebrates the human impulse to master extremes while lamenting the toll in dead bodies and poorly compensated guides. (After the 2014 tragedy, the Nepali government offered the families of deceased Sherpa climbers less money than was given to victims’ families following a previous avalanche in 1922.) Also like Synnott, he contextualizes the tragedy by recounting the past century of attempts to conquer the mountain, including the ill-starred expedition of George Mallory in 1924. Citing the story of Daedalus, Oderman wonders, “Has the…industry grown into such a massive display of hubris that it requires divine correction?”

A perceptive and thrillingly brutal examination of a most perilous pastime.