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On My Way Up
Follow a young woman as she struggles to survive a near fatal injury at the top of Rosalie Peak. A blizzard makes the rescue extremely hazardous, and she is quickly running out of time. The accident and the long wait to be rescued from the mountain allow her to assess her short life, and it forever changes her path. It is the true story of a woman who has miraculously survived through a harrowing tragic ordeal, and has used her second chance at life to overcome the problems of her youth and to break free of the burdens that tortured her.
252 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 29, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
December 10, 2018
This memoir grabbed me from page one. It has a little bit of everything - from dysfunctional relationships and families to addiction, to thrill seeking, all wrapped up in one. But the real takeaway is an examination of whether you are living an authentic life. That’s what it’s all about. And if you’re not, you can try, but you’ll never hide from the fact. And if you are, your heart soars every day. This book screams - Choose Authenticity!
September 5, 2021
Inspiring Story of Overcoming
Alyson has had a life - and it’s a touching read of overcoming despite all she went through. Recommended reading if you love adventure.
Alyson has had a life - and it’s a touching read of overcoming despite all she went through. Recommended reading if you love adventure.
January 25, 2026
I finished the book conflicted—not because the author’s pain is in doubt, but because the narrative asks for empathy without fully earning trust. There is a meaningful story here, but it is constrained by selective disclosure, repetition, and an unwillingness to confront the moral and behavioral complexity of recovery.
For readers seeking solidarity or reassurance, this book may resonate deeply. For readers in recovery spaces, it should be approached with caution. This is not a reliable template for healing, but rather a snapshot of someone still inside the process, mistaking endurance and articulation for resolution.
For me, that tension lands at three stars: a sincere memoir whose impact is diminished by agency asserted without accountability, unresolved boundary failures, and a substitution-based recovery narrative that remains largely uninterrogated.
This memoir is written with unmistakable emotional sincerity. The author does not aestheticize her pain or posture for sympathy; she is attempting to bear witness to her own survival. The book chronicles a life shaped by addiction, disordered eating, fractured family relationships, and a persistent drive toward self-mastery through endurance sports and self-discipline. For readers who recognize aspects of themselves in these struggles, the voice will feel intimate, familiar, and at times deeply affirming.
What follows is not a dismissal of the author’s experience, but an examination of where the memoir succeeds emotionally—and where it falters ethically and structurally.
One of the book’s genuine strengths is its candor about substance use. The author is open about her history of alcoholism, drug use, and cigarette smoking, all of which she quit on her own. That level of self-directed change is not trivial, and the discipline it required deserves acknowledgment. What the book does not fully interrogate, however, is what replaced those behaviors. Rather than exploring recovery as integration, the narrative repeatedly shifts into substitution: addiction gives way to disordered eating, which in turn gives way to extreme endurance pursuits. Each transition is framed as progress, but the underlying compulsion—control through deprivation, pain, and relentless proof—remains largely unexamined.
The draw of endurance sports—peak hunting, ultrarunning, and marathon accumulation—is not inherently pathological. For many people, including those who have lived at the edge of these worlds in a balanced way, such pursuits can be grounding, meaningful, and genuinely restorative. The issue here is not the pursuit itself, but the book’s reluctance to examine when endurance shifts from integration to substitution. The narrative gestures toward this tension but ultimately avoids sitting with it, allowing extremity to stand in for healing without fully asking whether the compulsion has simply changed form.
The memoir’s central claim is agency: the insistence that recovery requires self-awareness, choice, and personal responsibility rather than rescue. The author repeatedly emphasizes insight—recognizing patterns, identifying triggers, and naming what must change. In theory, this framework is ethically sound. In practice, however, the book consistently confuses articulation of insight with accountability for action, and the gap between the two is never meaningfully examined.
The near-death experience on Rosalie Peak is positioned as the memoir’s moral turning point. Lying on the mountain, the author states—repeatedly—that she knows she must divorce her husband and move on. This realization is framed as clarity earned through suffering. What the book does not adequately confront is how that clarity translated into action.
Despite knowing the marriage was over, the author went on to look at homes, sign a purchase contract, and take out a loan with her husband for a new house—fully aware that she had no intention of remaining in the marriage or moving forward with him. This was not indecision or emotional lag; by her own account, the decision to leave had already been made. Proceeding anyway removed her husband’s agency in a material way. Had she been honest, would he have chosen that home? Or rented instead? Or delayed a shared financial commitment altogether? The book never asks.
Later, the author notes that she “gave” him six months to refinance the loan and remove her from the deed. Framed this way, the gesture reads as generosity. In context, it underscores the imbalance: she made unilateral decisions, used the marriage as a place of safety during her recovery, and then positioned herself as magnanimous in the exit. What is missing is any sustained accountability for the fact that she controlled the timeline, the information, and the risk—while presenting the outcome as mutual or inevitable.
This omission matters because it crystallizes the book’s central ethical problem. Insight is repeatedly articulated, but accountability is deferred or displaced. The memoir asks the reader to admire resolve without fully reckoning with cost, particularly when that cost was borne by someone else.
A similar pattern appears in the author’s handling of family relationships. The book repeatedly names harm, disappointment, and emotional injury, yet it never establishes or sustains clear boundaries. Instead, it maintains a posture of openness and conditional reconciliation through to the final pages, even as the underlying dynamics remain unchanged. This ambiguity is framed as grace, but it also reflects an unresolved coping strategy—one in which endurance, hope, and emotional accommodation substitute for self-protection.
In recovery contexts, this framing is concerning. Compassion without limits, like agency without accountability, is not healing. The memoir discusses boundaries conceptually but rarely enacts them with clarity or consequence. Readers are not clearly told that these patterns remain unresolved; instead, they are left to infer whether ongoing proximity to harm is meant to represent growth rather than familiarity.
Ultimately, the distinction becomes essential. As a human document, this book is sincere, emotionally honest, and reflective of where the author was at the time of writing. That honesty deserves acknowledgment. As a published memoir, however, it withholds critical information, substitutes insight for accountability, and presents unresolved substitution patterns as growth.
For readers seeking solidarity or reassurance, this book may resonate deeply. For readers in recovery spaces, it should be approached with caution. This is not a reliable template for healing, but rather a snapshot of someone still inside the process, mistaking endurance and articulation for resolution.
For me, that tension lands at three stars: a sincere memoir whose impact is diminished by agency asserted without accountability, unresolved boundary failures, and a substitution-based recovery narrative that remains largely uninterrogated.
This memoir is written with unmistakable emotional sincerity. The author does not aestheticize her pain or posture for sympathy; she is attempting to bear witness to her own survival. The book chronicles a life shaped by addiction, disordered eating, fractured family relationships, and a persistent drive toward self-mastery through endurance sports and self-discipline. For readers who recognize aspects of themselves in these struggles, the voice will feel intimate, familiar, and at times deeply affirming.
What follows is not a dismissal of the author’s experience, but an examination of where the memoir succeeds emotionally—and where it falters ethically and structurally.
One of the book’s genuine strengths is its candor about substance use. The author is open about her history of alcoholism, drug use, and cigarette smoking, all of which she quit on her own. That level of self-directed change is not trivial, and the discipline it required deserves acknowledgment. What the book does not fully interrogate, however, is what replaced those behaviors. Rather than exploring recovery as integration, the narrative repeatedly shifts into substitution: addiction gives way to disordered eating, which in turn gives way to extreme endurance pursuits. Each transition is framed as progress, but the underlying compulsion—control through deprivation, pain, and relentless proof—remains largely unexamined.
The draw of endurance sports—peak hunting, ultrarunning, and marathon accumulation—is not inherently pathological. For many people, including those who have lived at the edge of these worlds in a balanced way, such pursuits can be grounding, meaningful, and genuinely restorative. The issue here is not the pursuit itself, but the book’s reluctance to examine when endurance shifts from integration to substitution. The narrative gestures toward this tension but ultimately avoids sitting with it, allowing extremity to stand in for healing without fully asking whether the compulsion has simply changed form.
The memoir’s central claim is agency: the insistence that recovery requires self-awareness, choice, and personal responsibility rather than rescue. The author repeatedly emphasizes insight—recognizing patterns, identifying triggers, and naming what must change. In theory, this framework is ethically sound. In practice, however, the book consistently confuses articulation of insight with accountability for action, and the gap between the two is never meaningfully examined.
The near-death experience on Rosalie Peak is positioned as the memoir’s moral turning point. Lying on the mountain, the author states—repeatedly—that she knows she must divorce her husband and move on. This realization is framed as clarity earned through suffering. What the book does not adequately confront is how that clarity translated into action.
Despite knowing the marriage was over, the author went on to look at homes, sign a purchase contract, and take out a loan with her husband for a new house—fully aware that she had no intention of remaining in the marriage or moving forward with him. This was not indecision or emotional lag; by her own account, the decision to leave had already been made. Proceeding anyway removed her husband’s agency in a material way. Had she been honest, would he have chosen that home? Or rented instead? Or delayed a shared financial commitment altogether? The book never asks.
Later, the author notes that she “gave” him six months to refinance the loan and remove her from the deed. Framed this way, the gesture reads as generosity. In context, it underscores the imbalance: she made unilateral decisions, used the marriage as a place of safety during her recovery, and then positioned herself as magnanimous in the exit. What is missing is any sustained accountability for the fact that she controlled the timeline, the information, and the risk—while presenting the outcome as mutual or inevitable.
This omission matters because it crystallizes the book’s central ethical problem. Insight is repeatedly articulated, but accountability is deferred or displaced. The memoir asks the reader to admire resolve without fully reckoning with cost, particularly when that cost was borne by someone else.
A similar pattern appears in the author’s handling of family relationships. The book repeatedly names harm, disappointment, and emotional injury, yet it never establishes or sustains clear boundaries. Instead, it maintains a posture of openness and conditional reconciliation through to the final pages, even as the underlying dynamics remain unchanged. This ambiguity is framed as grace, but it also reflects an unresolved coping strategy—one in which endurance, hope, and emotional accommodation substitute for self-protection.
In recovery contexts, this framing is concerning. Compassion without limits, like agency without accountability, is not healing. The memoir discusses boundaries conceptually but rarely enacts them with clarity or consequence. Readers are not clearly told that these patterns remain unresolved; instead, they are left to infer whether ongoing proximity to harm is meant to represent growth rather than familiarity.
Ultimately, the distinction becomes essential. As a human document, this book is sincere, emotionally honest, and reflective of where the author was at the time of writing. That honesty deserves acknowledgment. As a published memoir, however, it withholds critical information, substitutes insight for accountability, and presents unresolved substitution patterns as growth.
February 26, 2022
“I hope that this book might inspire or help just one person to break free of the self-imposed chains that hold us back in life - to make the decisions enabling a better path in life. A frightful childhood shouldn't condemn you to a life of misery. The mistakes you make as a teenager or young adult shouldn't define you. We all deserve happiness.”
Alyson has a fantastic story of survival, not just of the tragic climbing accident she details in the book, but of her traumatic childhood and eventual drug and alcohol addictions and eating disorders. The writing of the book itself is scattered and repetitive at times. I liked the way the flashbacks were embedded into the story of the accident, but I think it would’ve been more cohesive and made more sense to work her way through her childhood linearly, instead of jumping around so much.
I have some major issues with the way Alyson talks about fat people in the book, but I also understand that those thoughts are rooted in her own fear and internalized hatred of her body, which in turn led to her eating disorders. Her words seem to imply that weighing less makes someone a better person, as if fat people are untrustworthy and unreliable. I'm not surprised that she might grow up thinking that, based on the way her mother talked to her when she was at her heaviest, but I'm a little disappointed that the book ended without her coming to terms with how harmful thinking of food in this way is. If you are someone who has suffered from an eating disorder, I would caution you before reading this book, based on the effect it has had on my friends with eating disorders.
Alyson has a fantastic story of survival, not just of the tragic climbing accident she details in the book, but of her traumatic childhood and eventual drug and alcohol addictions and eating disorders. The writing of the book itself is scattered and repetitive at times. I liked the way the flashbacks were embedded into the story of the accident, but I think it would’ve been more cohesive and made more sense to work her way through her childhood linearly, instead of jumping around so much.
I have some major issues with the way Alyson talks about fat people in the book, but I also understand that those thoughts are rooted in her own fear and internalized hatred of her body, which in turn led to her eating disorders. Her words seem to imply that weighing less makes someone a better person, as if fat people are untrustworthy and unreliable. I'm not surprised that she might grow up thinking that, based on the way her mother talked to her when she was at her heaviest, but I'm a little disappointed that the book ended without her coming to terms with how harmful thinking of food in this way is. If you are someone who has suffered from an eating disorder, I would caution you before reading this book, based on the effect it has had on my friends with eating disorders.
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March 19, 2022Received in the mail and read immediately. Compelling honesty. I'm a climber and that's what initially drew me to this book, but it is much more than climbing stories. If anything, the climbing is downplayed. It's hard to explain to someone who's unfamiliar with the Colorado mountains how much energy and commitment the climbs mentioned so casually here would take, but A.K. never loses track of her focus on her personal struggles and the lessons she's learned in her life along with her climbs.
February 13, 2019
4.5 stars rounded up to 5. I immediately liked Alyson and intimately understood her broken childhood. I have tremendous respect for her survival, determination, and iron will to choose her own path.
April 29, 2020
Alyson is a truth-teller. I must have taken so much courage to tell her story. This is about so much more than just a mountain rescue, it’s about coming to terms with the past relationships and choices and starting life over.
May 26, 2021
This is an easy read and never gets boring. Alyson is a great storyteller and her journey is nothing short of amazing. The soulmate stuff got a little nauseating but it didn’t detract from the overall message. I am jealous of her mountaintop wedding.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 14, 2021
I expected this book to be about overcoming a physical injury, which it was but also so much more. The physical recovery, emotional recovery, coming into her self, and honoring her truths were unexpected. The bravery required for all processes is important.
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July 15, 2019i can't talk about it
September 29, 2020
Amazing!
I could not out this down. It was exciting, inspiring and a wonderful story! Loved every minute! So so awesome!
I could not out this down. It was exciting, inspiring and a wonderful story! Loved every minute! So so awesome!
December 17, 2020
Inspiring!
such an incredible story of persevering through all the challenges life can hurl at you. Can't wait to go bag some peaks!
such an incredible story of persevering through all the challenges life can hurl at you. Can't wait to go bag some peaks!
December 28, 2021
Great come back story. May be difficult to read for those that have suffered from an eating disorder.
August 9, 2022
Inspirational story about overcoming obstacles.
November 7, 2022
Well done
A very personal look at the struggles and the incredible potential and achievements that can spawn from tragedy. Easy fun read!
A very personal look at the struggles and the incredible potential and achievements that can spawn from tragedy. Easy fun read!
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews