Snow in the Kingdom: My Storm Years on Everest
- Book Review,
by Ed Webster
OUTSIDE Magazine, USA, May, 2003
One of the Top Ten greatest hits of Everest Lit. An exhaustive memoir ... including the near-fatal 1988 Kangshung face expedition.
Thom Pollard, EverestNews.com, May 17, 2001
"Much more than a climbing book, Snow In The Kingdom is about the making of a man. [Reading] the do-or-die summit push it was impossible to put the book down."
Don Mellor, GORP.com, May 10, 2001
"Engrossing and detailed writing, candid introspection, generous color photography ... It belongs on the shelf among the great annals of mountain literature."
Rock & Ice Magazine, Feb/March, 2001
"...Webster's powerfully written Snow in the Kingdom escapes being swallowed in the [Everest] deluge ... is meticulously researched and emotionally charged."
The Observer, London, Dec. 24, 2000
"Webster's most intriguing claim is that seven-year-old Tenzing Norgay may have met George Mallory ... whose body was discovered last year."
Joe Simpson, High Mountain Sports, England, December 2001
"Emotionally charged ... (the book is) an examination of Webster's soul, rather than a simple story of a great climb."
Rain Taxi literary review, Autumn, 2001
"This miraculous account of struggle and survival rivets the reader to discover what the fate of these friends will be."
Midwest Book Review, October 2001
"Snow in the Kingdom dazzles the eye as much as the imagination ... Heroic, upbeat, and powerful."
SECOND PLACE Winner, 2001 Boardman-Tasker Mountain Literature Prize, London.
"the strongest [book] of its sort since Touching the Void. Perhaps a closer comparison is Herzog’s Annapurna."
2001 Banff Mountain Book Festival, Banff, Canada
FINALIST, Mountain Literature catagory
Book Description
Snow in the Kingdom is the Everest autobiography of Ed Webster’s five "Storm Years" on and off of Mount Everest following the climbing death of his girlfriend, Lauren Husted, in Colorado's Black Canyon. A milestone in American mountaineering literature, Snow in the Kingdom will appeal to climbers and "armchair climbers" alike. It’s an adventure story penned in the tradition of the great explorers; a seminal document on modern lightweight, ethical Himalayan climbing; and a deeply personal account of one man’s search for redemption and achievement while pioneering an uncharted route up Everest’s most dangerous side. An astounding 150 pages of vivid color photographs — over 450 photographs in all — add depth and beauty to the compelling narrative. Webster attempted Everest from three sides: the West, North, and East, from both Nepal and Tibet. Webster soloed Everest’s north peak, Changtse, then pioneered a new route up the 12,000-foot precipices of Mount Everest’s Kangshung Face in Tibet, with a 4-man team and NO bottled oxygen, radios, or Sherpa support. Also included are the unpublished 1921 and 1924 Everest photographs of the legendary British pioneers George Mallory and Noel Odell, plus the never-before-told story of Tenzing Norgay’s birthplace and boyhood home in Moyun Village, Tibet — and the astounding assertion that in 1921, Mallory and Tenzing met one another in Tibet.
From the Publisher
Physical Description: 6 x 9.25 inches, hard back, color laminated dust jacket, 580 pages printed on high-quality coated paper. Also included are 150 pages of color photographs, 282 black and white photos, maps of Asia and the Tibetan Plateau, 3 climbing route maps of Everest’s three faces, and 8 Everest climbing route photo-diagrams.
From the Author
"Snow in the Kingdom is at last published. After 12 years of effort, here it is ! The finest accolade that my teammates, Robert Anderson, Stephen Venables, and Paul Teare and I received came from Reinhold Messner, the world’s greatest mountaineer, who unequivocally stated that our Everest Kangshung Face climb was "the best ascent of Everest in terms and style of pure adventure." It most certainly was the adventure of our lives — and fortunately we survived! Thank you and Namaste, Ed Webster
About the Author
Born on March 21, 1956, in Boston, Ed Webster grew up in Lexington, Massachusetts and obtained a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from Colorado College in Colorado Springs in 1978. Married, he now lives in Boulder, Colorado, and is an acknowledged expert on the history of Mount Everest, George Mallory, and Tenzing Norgay. An author, lecturer, publisher, and photojournalist, Webster also has written two definitive guidebooks, Rock Climbs in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and Climbing in the Magic Islands to the Lofoten Islands of Arctic Norway. He is the recipient of the American Mountain Foundation’s 1988 Seventh Grade Award for outstanding achievements in mountaineering; the American Alpine Club’s 1990 Literary Award; and American Alpine Club’s 1994 David H. Soules Award, for saving the life of a fellow climber. Webster is one of only three mountaineers cited in the board game, Trivial Pursuit — his Everest frostbite injuries being duly noted in the "Best of the 80s" edition! His photographs have been published worldwide, in publications ranging from Climbing Magazine and Rock & Ice, to Popular Mechanics, Rolling Stone, and the New York Times Sunday Magazine.
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