Vienna, 1986, 1st edition. 182 pp, color ills. Magnificent Fitzroy book. In 1986, at age 23, Thomas Bubendorfer climbed one of the hardest mountains on the planet, Mount Fitz Roy in Patagonia, in an epic 23-hour non-stop solo. The success of this unique and unsupported expedition triggered off intensive media coverage and television portraits in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy. Thomas wrote his second book, 'Mount Fitz Roy – The Quality of the Next Step”, which was published in 1986. It also became a bestseller, and critics compared it with Robert Pirsig’s 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” (which Thomas read only five years afterwards). Text in German. DJ, Fine.
Strong hints of his future philosophy are found in 'Quality”, and his early influence by William Faulkner is clearly visible. He began to leave the trodden (and to him boring) path of mere description of – albeit sensational – climbing expeditions and to dwell on the universal truths underlying a solo climbers’ doing. For him, the basic question was and still is: 'What is true for a solo mountain climber who tackles the world’s highest and steepest mountain faces without ropes, what helps him to survive - is that true for people in other situations of life as well?”
