'How much risk is worth taking for so beautiful a prize?'
The Magician's Glass by award-winning writer Ed Douglas is a
collection of eight recent essays on some of the biggest stories and
best-known personalities in the world of climbing.
In the title essay, he writes about failure on Annapurna III in 1981,
one of the boldest attempts in Himalayan mountaineering on one of the
most beautiful lines - a line that remains unclimbed to this day.
Douglas writes about bitter controversies, like that surrounding Ueli
Steck's disputed solo ascent of the south face of Annapurna, the fate of
Toni Egger on Cerro Torre in 1959 - when Cesare Maestri claimed the pair
had made the first ascent, and the rise and fall of Slovenian ace Tomaz
Humar. There are profiles of two stars of the 1980s: the much-loved
German Kurt Albert, the father of the 'redpoint', and the enigmatic rock
star Patrick Edlinger, a national hero in his native France who lost his
way.
In Crazy Wisdom, Douglas offers fresh perspectives on the impact
mountaineering has on local communities and the role climbers play in
the developing world. The final essay explores the relationship between
art and alpinism as a way of understanding why it is that people climb
mountains.