Facing The Extreme: One Woman's Tale of True Courage, Death-Defying Survival and Her Quest For The Summit

by Ruth A. Kocour, Michael Hodgson

She stepped into a death zone. The climbers on Alaska's Mt. McKinley called her "the woman." Ruth Anne Kocour, a world-class mountaineer, wasn't bothered. It was part of the challenge she faced as she joined an all-male team to conquer North America's highest peak...the mountain the Indians called Denali, or God.

Faced the extreme. But nine days into this ascent, a forty-fifth birthday present to herself, the most violent weather on record slammed into the mountain. Ruth Anne and her group would be trapped on an ice shelf at 14,000 feet for the deadliest two weeks in Denali history. Pinned down by blinding snows, unable to help other teams dying around her, and her own feet freezing solid, Ruth Anne tells of a wind chill of minus 150 degrees, deadly hidden crevasses, and being trapped in a place so violent and unforgiving that it threatened to push her over the edge and into a place of no return. And yet, in prose as crystalline as the ice around her, she tells, too, of beauty, courage, and the spirit that drives true mountainers higher, as she risks all to go for the summit...and perhaps, for a transcendant moment, touch heaven.

And lived to tell about it.

256 pages, Hardcover

First published December 15, 1997

Reviews

[Mihai · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had not heard about this mountaineering account until I came across it on the bookshelf at my local library. I picked it up to bridge the gap between some heftier works of fiction, and in that sense it worked well because its simple structure and straightforward story made it go fast. There's nothing grandiose or profound here about the philosophy of climbing; instead, the reader gets exactly what the subtitle says - a woman's tale of survival and success in a truly difficult situation. I think the book is important because it was written by the sole female member of that particular team, and set in a time (1992) when high-altitude women climbers were still few and far between. There are many less-than-glamorous details about the nature of expedition mountaineering on big mountains such as Denali, which author Kocour does not hesitate to share with her readers. That makes the book feel very 'real', because as any serious climber knows, how one deals with the unpleasant things while on the mountain plays a big factor on individual performance as well as team dynamics. Facing the Extreme is obviously an expansion of the author's journal into a more literary form, but even so it's a worthy read even for armchair mountaineers.

[tyRonE hArDing · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good story about a women's climbing adventure

[Kathy Schulstad · Rating 3 out of 5]

mountain climbing….