Known for his lyrical writing and his ability to convey not only the dangers of mountaineering but the pure exaltation of the climb, Gaston Rebuffat is among the most well known and revered Alpinists of all time.  He rose to international prominence in 1950 as one of the four principal stalwarts in the first ascent of Annapurna, the highest mountain climbed at that time.  Yet his finest feat as a mountaineer was to be the first man to climb all six of the legendary great north faces of the Alps - the Grandes Jorasses, the Piz Badile, the Dru, the Matterhorn, the Cima Grande di Lavaredo, and the Eiger.

With this elegant book, first published in 1954, Rebuffat transformed mountain writing.  His insistence on seeing a climb as an act of harmonious communion with the mountain, not a battle waged against it, seemed radical at the time, though Rebuffat's aesthetic has since won the day.  Through storms, avalanches, rock fall, unplanned bivouacs, and even the deaths of companions, we follow the Chamonix guide to the altar of his communion, on dark, icy walls that struck terror into the hearts of Europe's finest mountaineers.