7 days ago
Five Best: Books on Explorers
Everest Grand CircleBy Ned Gillette and Jan Reynolds (1985)
1. My favorite Everest book isn't about reaching the top of the world's tallest mountain. In 'Everest Grand Circle: A Climbing and Skiing Adventure Through Nepal and Tibet,' Ned Gillette and Jan Reynolds recount circumnavigating it—on skis—during two phases, first in Nepal in 1981 followed by Tibet in 1982. Gillette and Ms. Reynolds's 300-mile journey across the roof of the world unspools as an intimate conversation among themselves, the land and the people who live in the shadow of the peak they call 'Chomolungma'—goddess mother of the world. Gillette has a voice that is dry and sharp while Ms. Reynolds is always seeking the light: 'Each morning brought a different kind of beauty, if we were willing to look.' The power of this narrative lies in how the authors' perspectives intertwine, weaving a portrait not so much of what they did, but how it felt to do it, like 'mountain gypsies,' Mr. Gillette wrote in a 1983 essay about the expedition. He and Ms. Reynolds were free 'to rummage through the most magnificent terrain on earth.'
