Chessler Books
Rock Climbing - Mountaineering - Exploration
New - Used - Collectible - Signed
Chessler Books Accepts PAYPAL Chessler Books Accepts VISA Chessler Books Accepts MASTERCARD Chessler Books Accepts DISCOVER CARD Chessler Books Accepts AMERICAN EXPRESS
All Orders Shipped via United States Postal Service   Chessler Books Ships Via USPS
Author:
Title:
Keyword:
Item #:
A B C D E F G H I
J K L M Mc N O P Q
R S T U V W X Y Z
Item #: BK2188-96735
THE EIGER OBSESSION: FACING THE MOUNTAIN THAT KILLED MY FATHER John Harlin 2007 1st ed Hardcover DJ Fine Multiple Copies Available [Not Signed]
By Harlin, John III
Price: $4.99

List Price: $26.00
You Save $21.01 (81%)



Add to wish list


Detailed Product Description

New York, 2007, 1st edition. 292 pp, b/w photos. Hardcover with dust jacket. Fine condition with remainder mark on top or bottom edge.

Winner of the Banff Mountain Festival Mountain History Prize 2007.

In the 1960s an American named John Harlin II changed the face of Alpine climbing. Gutsy and gorgeous - he was known as 'the blond god' - Harlin successfully summited some of the most treacherous mountains in Europe. But it was the north face of the Eiger that became Harlin's obsession. Living with his wife and two children in Leysin, Switzerland, he spent countless hours planning to climb, waiting to climb, and attempting to climb the massive vertical face. It was the Eiger direct, the direttissima, with which John Harlin was particularly obsessed. He wanted to be the first to complete it, and everyone in the Alpine world knew it.

John Harlin III was nine years old when his father made another attempt on a direct ascent of the notorious Eiger. Harlin had put together a terrific team, including Layton Kor, Dougal Haston and Chris Bonington, and despite unending storms, he was poised for the summit dash. It was the moment he had long waited for. When Harlin's rope broke, 2,000 feet from the summit, he plummeted 4,000 feet to his death. In the shadow of tragedy, young John Harlin III came of age possessed with the very same passion for risk that drove his father. But he had also promised his mother, a beautiful and brilliant young widow, that he would not be an Alpine climber.

Harlin moved from Europe to America, and, with an insatiable sense of wanderlust, he reveled in downhill skiing and rock-climbing. For years he successfully denied the clarion call of the mountain that killed his father. But in 2005, John Harlin could resist no longer. With his nine-year-old daughter, Siena - his very age at the time of his father's death - and with an IMAX Theatre film making crew watching, Harlin set off to slay the Eiger. This is an unforgettable story about fathers and sons, climbers and mountains, and dreamers who dare to challenge the earth.

There is a companion IMAX film called The Alps that was filmed during Harlin III's Eiger ascent. 

This movie description is from the IMAX website:

"In a bold attempt to make climbing history and reconnect with the memory of his father, John Harlin III, son of mountaineering legend John Harlin II, has successfully reached the summit of the infamous Eiger North Face in the Swiss Alps, forty years after the same mountain claimed the life of his famous father. With him were renowned European climbers Robert and Daniela Jasper. The team summited on September 24 after a climb that lasted three days, with two nights spent bivouacked on narrow ledges high on the sheer face of the mountain.

'The Eiger North Face is considered the most treacherous climb in all of Europe with its dangerously exposed 6,000-foot vertical wall of jagged limestone made more perilous by the constant threat of falling boulders, avalanches and unpredictable weather patterns. Scores of climbers have tempted fate on the Eiger’s craggy slopes, and more than fifty have lost their lives on the mountain.

'John Harlin III was nine years old when his father, aged 30, fell 4,000 feet to his death while attempting the first “direct” route up the Eiger in 1966. A climbing legend even at that relatively young age, Harlin II was already as identified with the Eiger as Mallory with Everest or Whymper with the Matterhorn. John Harlin II was the first American to scale the mountain’s infamous North Face in 1962, and finally, in 1966 after many more attempts, he became the leader of the climbing team that, despite his death, would eventually become the first to ascend the now-celebrated “Eiger Direct,” otherwise known as “The John Harlin Route,” which leads almost straight up the North Face of the Eiger from base to summit.

“I am relieved, after so many years, to have finally made my peace with the Eiger,” said Harlin, aged 50. “This climb is something I’ve needed to do for a long time. The Eiger has cast a shadow over my family for decades, and while this climb does not change the fact of my father’s death, it allows me personally to close a significant chapter in my life. The Jaspers were great climbing partners and have become great friends; I’m thrilled to have made this climb with them.”

'John Harlin’s family history is incredibly rich and emotional,” said producer Greg MacGillivray. “It’s a story of human endeavor and physical endurance, of great beauty and great tragedy, of the forces that can drive an individual to risk everything to climb a mountain, and the sense of personal accomplishment that comes with that. John and the Jaspers made a great climbing team and we congratulate them on the success of their climb.”

'Working under extreme conditions, the filmmaking team faced daunting physical and logistical challenges as they worked to capture footage of the climb with a cold-weather ready IMAX camera and videocam. In addition to filming on the Eiger, the crew also filmed scenes at the Matterhorn, the most famous mountain in the world. The film crew will return to the Matterhorn in March 2006 to shoot sequences on skiing and avalanche control.

“We've never attempted a more challenging shoot than this,' said director, Stephen Judson, who was at Base Camp during MacGillivray Freeman’s Everest shoot. 'Mount Everest is much higher in elevation but it can't begin to compare to the Eiger in terms of technical difficulty. This massive vertical wall of rock looms over a mile high—the tallest, stormiest cliff face in Europe—and has long been feared as the most extreme climb in the Alps. But we had a superb climbing team, and they successfully captured gripping footage of this harrowing ascent. It’s going to put the audience right there in the heart of this exciting and emotional story."

A film that invites audiences to celebrate the timeless beauty and unique culture of the Alps while experiencing this exciting climb side by side with John Harlin and the Jaspers, The Alps: Giants of Nature (www.alpsfilm.com) is a Great Adventure Film® produced by MacGillivray Freeman Films and distributed by MacGillivray Freeman Films Distribution Company.

More About John Harlin III:

John Harlin III grew up in Leysin in the Swiss Alps, where his father, John Harlin II, founded the International School of Mountaineering. After his father’s death, John returned with his mother and sister to the U.S., where he has been an active mountaineer, skier, adventurer, editor, and writer. After stints writing climbing guidebooks and serving as an editor for Backpacker and Summit magazines, Harlin is currently the editor of the prestigious American Alpine Journal, the journal of record for new mountain routes worldwide. He has made first telemark and first ski descents, climbed new routes, and made first river descents in such places as Peru, Bolivia, Tibet, Alaska, Canada, the Alps, and throughout the U.S.


Other Items You Might Like

  • Similar Items Available
  • Items From This Author
  • Items From This Category
ALPINE JOURNAL 100s OF INDIVIDUAL ISSUES LISTED HERE! PAPERBACK, WRAPPERS or HARDCOVER ISSUES 1863-1986
By: Alpine Club UK
Price $10.00
- Item # JR207B
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
STRAIGHT UP: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF JOHN HARLIN James Ramsay Ullman 1968 1st ed Hardcover DJ Near Fine Multiple Copies Available
By: Ullman, James Ramsey
Price $24.95 ~ Regular $29.95, You Save $5.00 (17%)
- Item # OP99-9524
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
SUMMIT MAGAZINE BACK ISSUES 1960-1969 See This List
By: Summit Magazine
Price $10.00
- Item # JR154J-893
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
MAZAMA BULLETIN INDIVIDUAL BACK ISSUES 1905 - 1975 New issues recently added
By: Mazama Bulletin
Price $5.00
- Item # JR225-127
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
10TH MOUNTAIN DIVISION MOUNTAIN ''ROCKER'' SHOULDER PATCH ORIGINAL NEW CONDITION!
By: Army, U.S., 10th Mountain Division
Price $7.99
- Item # HW12D-5395
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
10TH MOUNTAIN DIVISION SHOULDER PATCH ORIGINAL NEW CONDITION! SPECIAL: 2 FOR $9.99
By: Army, U.S., 10th Mountain Division
Price $9.99 ~ Regular $30.00, You Save $20.01 (67%)
- Item # HW12A-18623
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
10TH MOUNTAIN DIVISION SHOULDER PATCH GREEN & BLACK WITH MOUNTAIN ROCKER NEW
By: Army, U.S., 10th Mountain Division
Price $14.99
- Item # HW12C-5395
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
10TH MOUNTAIN DIVISION SHOULDER PATCH ORIGINAL WORLD WAR II USED
By: Army, U.S., 10th Mountain Division
Price $19.99
- Item # HW12B-5395
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
THE CLIMB UP TO HELL Jack Olsen 1962 1st ed Hardcover DJ Very Good 2 Copies Available
By: Olsen, Jack
Price $15.00 ~ Regular $30.00, You Save $15.00 (50%)
- Item # OP604A-9522
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
CLIMBER and CLIMBER AND RAMBLER MAGAZINE UK (Not a set) $5 per issue As available
By: Climber and Rambler Magazine
Price $5.00
- Item # JR251-121
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
Sorry, we were unable find any similar items available by this author.


CANADIAN ALPINE JOURNAL 1965 2 copies available
By: Alpine Club of Canada
Price $9.99 ~ Regular $50.00, You Save $40.01 (80%)
- Item # CAJ1965-2 VOL 48
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
NORTH FACE IN WINTER:THE FIRST WINTER CLIMB OF THE EIGER'S NORTH FACE MARCH 1961 Toni Hiebeler 1963 1st US ed Hardcover DJ Very Good
By: Hiebeler, Toni
Price $15.99 ~ Regular $45.00, You Save $29.01 (64%)
- Item # OP544D-179
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
INDIAN ADVENTURE: A BACKPACKER'S GUIDE TO INDIA Amanda Moorhouse 1993 Softcover Fine
By: Moorhouse, Amanda
Price $4.99 ~ Regular $20.00, You Save $15.01 (75%)
- Item # BK5836-110
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
THE WORLD BENEATH THIER FEET: MOUNTAINEERING, MADNESS, AND THE DEADLY RACE TO SUMMIT THE HIMALAYAS Scott Ellsworth 2020 1st ed Hardcover DJ Fine Multiple Copies Available
By: Ellsworth, Scott
Price $29.95
- Item # BK4189-9484
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
THE CANADIAN MOUNTAINEERING ANTHOLOGY Bruce Fairley 1994 1st ed Paperback Fine
By: Fairley, Bruce.
Price $9.95 ~ Regular $25.00, You Save $15.05 (60%)
- Item # BK443-162
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
THE COAST OF INCENSE Freya Stark 1985 Softcover Near Fine
By: Stark, Freya
Price $4.99 ~ Regular $15.00, You Save $10.01 (67%)
- Item # OP7906-936
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
MY QUEST FOR THE YETI: CONFRONTING THE HIMALAYAS' DEEPEST MYSTERY Reinhold Messner 2000 1st US ed Hardcover DJ New [Not signed by the Yeti]
By: Messner, Reinhold
Price $29.99 ~ Regular $39.95, You Save $9.96 (25%)
- Item # BK1035-950
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
THE MOUNTAIN SPIRIT Tobias and Drasdo 1979 1st ed Hardcover DJ Fine
By: Tobias, Michael and Harold Drasdo
Price $15.00 ~ Regular $35.00, You Save $20.00 (57%)
- Item # OP1560-896
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
HOURS OF EXERCISE IN THE ALPS John Tyndall 1885 US ed Hardcover Near Fine
By: Tyndall, John
Price $19.99 ~ Regular $59.00, You Save $39.01 (66%)
- Item # OP1299B-947
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
BREAKING TRAIL: A CLIMBING LIFE Arlene Blum 2005 1st ed Hardcover DJ Fine
By: Blum, Arlene
Price $9.99 ~ Regular $27.50, You Save $17.51 (64%)
- Item # BK2022A-966
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart