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    Dead Lucky: Life After Death on Mount Everest
    Unavailable
    Dead Lucky: Life After Death on Mount Everest
    Unavailable
    Dead Lucky: Life After Death on Mount Everest
    Ebook455 pages6 hours

    Dead Lucky: Life After Death on Mount Everest

    By Lincoln Hall

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Lincoln Hall's breathtaking account of surviving a night in Everest's "death zone."

    Lincoln Hall likes to say that on the evening of May 25, 2006, he died on Everest. Indeed, Hall attempted to climb the mountain during a deadly season in which eleven people perished. And he was, in fact, pronounced dead, after collapsing from altitude sickness. Two Sherpas spent hours trying to revive him, but as darkness fell, word came via radio from the expedition's leader that they should descend in order to save themselves. The news of Hall's death traveled rapidly from mountaineering websites to news media around the world, and ultimately to his family back in Australia. Early the next morning, however, an American guide, climbing with two clients and a Sherpa, was startled to find Hall sitting cross-legged on a sharp crest of the summit ridge.

    In this page-turning account of survival against all odds, Hall chronicles in fascinating detail the days and nights that led up to his fateful night in Mount Everest's "death zone." His story is all the more miraculous given his climbing history. Hall had been part of Australia's first attempt to reach the top of Everest in 1984 but had not done any major climbing for many years, having set aside his passion in order to support his family. While others in the team achieved their dream during this 1984 expedition, Hall was forced to turn back due to illness. Thus, his triumph in reaching the summit at the age of fifty is a story unto itself. So, too, is Hall's description of his family's experience back in Australia, as sudden grief turned to relief and joy in a matter of hours. Rarely has there been such a thrilling narrative of one man's encounter with the world's tallest mountain.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Group
    Release dateMay 15, 2008
    ISBN9781440630910
    Unavailable
    Dead Lucky: Life After Death on Mount Everest
    Author

    Lincoln Hall

    Lincoln Hall is one of Australia's best known mountaineers, with a climbing career that spans three decades, most notably in the Himalaya, Antarctica and the Andes. He had a key role in the first Australian ascent of Mount Everest in 1984, and his account of that expedition, White Limbo, became a bestseller. Hall's second book was The Loneliest Mountain, the story of a journey to Antarctica in a small yacht and the first ascent of Mount Minto. His only published work of fiction is Blood on the Lotus, an historical novel set in Nepal and Tibet. Fear No Boundary is Hall's biography of his friend Sue Fear, who died mountaineering in the Himalaya while Hall was on Mount Everest in 2006. He has worked as a trekking guide, has edited adventure magazines, and is a director of the Australian Himalayan Foundation. Hall was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in 1987 for his services to mountaineering. He lives with his wife, Barbara Scanlan, and their two teenage sons, Dylan and Dorje, in Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains, New South Wales.

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    Reviews for Dead Lucky

    3.5/5

    47 ratings6 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I am prompted to go back to this book, thinking of the recent death of Lincoln Hall. The newspapers, as best I recollect, managed to resist the temptation to headline ¨No, really.¨ But it´s true, asbestos claimed him earlier this year, sitting dormant in his lungs all that while. Mountaineering is one of my interests - reading about it anyhow. I was already following the stories from Everest when Lincoln Hall did the most unusual thing possible in the circumstances, that is to say (like the fictional boy), he lived - surviving a night exposed on the mountain at 8600m.Following the story then, and reading Lincoln´s account of it some time later it seemed to me that the most interesting people in the story were Dan Mazur (whose team found Lincoln and then gave up their summit attempt to stay with him until help arrived) and Lincoln´s wife. Lincoln himself comes across as very normal. A regular guy with a hobby, who might not have attracted so much attention, but for that time when he was hallucinating that he was sitting in a boat while actually half naked 5 miles up and inches from a ten thousand foot drop.For those with an interest in Himalayan mountaineering this book is a good read, for anyone interested in high altitude survival it´s a must read. But for those that are looking for inspirational mountaineering stories I´d recommend starting somewhere else, and perhaps come back to this later - because oddly enough, the more you know about Everest the more extraordinary the story of Lincoln´s survival becomes.
    • 3/5
      A very detailed and personal account of surviving the impossible.
    • 4/5
      A fascinating and personal account by Lincoln Hall of the events on Everest in May 2006. I particularly liked how Hall tries to show the non-climber how being in the Death Zone confuses the mind and the body. He also tries to put the controversial death of David Sharp into context with his own survival against the odds, which leads to an exploration of how he feels that Tibetan Buddhist meditation techniques may have contributed to his survival of a night at 8,600 metres. He is changed by all of his experiences, as he comments, 'My scrape with death had shaken me free of some of those restrictions. I now find myself in a space where judgements are fewer, where habits don't seem as necessary.'
    • 3/5
      If you take a peek at my library, you will see that I love real-life adventure stories, particularly those that involve survival in extreme situations. While this author's story is compelling, I found his telling of it lacking. For someone who admits that he was in and out of hallucinations, it is odd how he claims to just "know" that certain events definitely occurred. Many of his claims (especially regarding disturbing claims of getting beaten by Sherpas) go unsubstantiated by any third party in the book. One of his claims concerning what appears to be a self-diagnosis of cerebral edema is an outright contradiction to his own statements earlier in the book about that same condition.Had the author interspersed quotes/transcripts of actual interviews with the other climbers and the Sherpas involved to substantiate some things and give us more perspectives, I think I would have enjoyed it more. Instead, I found his tone through most of the story to be, "it happened this way because I remember it happened this way." I actually found myself getting irritated with the author. He second-guessed early on that the six weeks he had to prepare for an Everest ascent were not adequate. Yet in the end, he doesn't seem to acknowledge that inadequate preparation could have contributed to how quickly he deteriorated.I felt sorry for the Sherpas, who are the REAL heroes of this story. Many of them risked their lives, and had to be absolutely aggravated and at their wit's end with the situation. I also felt that the climbers who found the author and gave up their chance to summit were real heroes. It would have been refreshing if this book had been written reflecting their perspectives...describing the personal anguish of giving up a summit bid; discussing what goes through the Sherpas' heads when they are dealing with a climber who is physically collapsing and making poor decisions; etc.Like another reviewer, I, too, tried to like this book, and kind of feel badly about not liking it more. However, there are much better books of Everest survival stories out there.
    • 5/5
      This is a heard it on NPR book. I've always enjoyed the mountain climbing genre. Humans that stretch living to its furthest edge. Lincoln Hall stepped over the line, then returned. A remarkable journey in one sentence. The book tells how and why. "The Sherpas were sadly familiar with altitude-induced deaths on the mountain, and they saw the only difference between my body and those of ... others listed ... was that mine was not yet frozen." How did Lincoln live when others had died? He shouldn't have, he knows that himself. His rationalization is based on his study of, and adherence to, Tibettan Buddhism and the levels of death/consciousness. This reason dovetails nicely into some of the Dalai Lama's own writing in my recently read book of his, The Universe in a Single Adam. Both readings reinforced the need to remain in the moment, this moment. Lincoln reinforced this towards the end of the book when describing some of the Sherpa aggression towards him during his rescue, along with the fact that he denied his rescuing party the chance to summit. He acknowledges these transgressions, as "water under the bridge." "In his poem 'First Things First,' W. H. Audin wrote 'Thousands have lived without love, not one without water." The water needs to pass under the bridge and then be gone. That's my lesson learned.
    • 2/5
      I actually feel bad about not liking this book more. Lincoln Hall sounds like a nice man, and his "back from the dead" story should be fasciinating. Unfortunately, this book has none of the introspection of Beck Weathers superior autobiography. Also, some of the controversial parts of his experience (did he have cerebral edema or not, was he beaten by Sherpa rescuers or not, did the behavior of the Sherpas put him in more danger or rescue him) are not supported by facts or first person information from others. Hall's belief that he had cerebral edema is odd, because this condition has never been known to heal without treatment - Hall states in passing that he believes his pre-trip vitamins helped him overcome his condition. Hall also states that another climber saw him being assaulted by a Sherpa - but provides no direct quotes from the other climber. Hall also admits hallucinating, but says that looking back he knows when he was hallucinating and when he was not. I expected a better book from Hall, as he is a noted alpine author.