Review: Forever on the Mountain

Forever on the Mountain
James Tabor

Thought I'd jump mountains again; there are plenty of books about Everest, but I like a little variety in my diet.

Forever on the Mountain, James Tabor's tale of the controversial 1967 expedition up Mt. McKinley won grand prize in the Banff Mountain Book Festival, and it is easy to see why. Twelve men started the climb; only five survived. The rest were stranded near the top in terribly stormy conditions; with no rescue attempted, all died. This book - detailed, meticulously researched, vivid - attempts to untangle the fallout from this disaster. Tabor had his work cut out for him; the expedition leader was estranged from half of his own group and the accounts they gave of what had happened differed widely. The Park Service pointed fingers, as did all surviving members of the expedition; some bodies were never recovered (which is not that unusual in this kind of mountaineering). There were those who tried to help, but Tabor reveals why these aborted attempts failed.

Forever on the Mountain may seem to meander at times, but all parts of the story are necessary to understand what happened and what befell the climbers. Like Sebastian Junger in The Perfect Storm, Tabor uses invented dialogue between the deceased climbers to predict what may have happened in their final days and to explain how things went wrong for them. This is a brilliant work that details fully the tragedy that unfolds and invites the reader to share in the triumphs and ultimately the failures of this expedition.

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Forever on the Mountain

The Author's web site offers further information for the interested reader.