UK, Kaye & Ward, 1984, 1st edition. 217pp. Illustrated with color plates. Navy hardcover with dust jacket. Fine.
INSCRIBED on the back of the half title page by Norman Croucher
This is an exceptional story of an exceptional man. Here he tells the story of how, even though a tragic accident at the age of nineteen caused him to loose both legs below the knee, he managed to fulfil his dream of becoming a mountaineer, and has climbed and led expeditions in almost all the major mountain ranges of the world.
In 1969 he undertook the arduous 900-mile walk from John o'Groat's to Land's End in order to get fit for big mountains. Then after training in the Alps, he went to Peru, Argentina, Kashmir and China, where he made several ascents in excess of 20,000 feet. The story of his grueling battle on Muztagh Ata, 24,757 feet, in China, is enough to leave one breathless and the subsequent descent in bad weather with a sick and snow blind companion contributed an epic quality to the adventure. Even when one of his artificial legs broke in Argentina he would not give up but set out on one leg to climb a mountain more than a thousand feet higher than Mont Blanc, the highest of the Alps.
