This book is a first-person account of the first group of American climbers to reach an 8000-meter summit in the Himalayas. The photographs, some in full color, really bring the experience to life. Excerpt: "We continued to buck forward. We could look directly up at the summit through the high col between the ridge of Hidden South and the Urdok Comb. Ahead were a few undulating areas with large crevasses, but it would be only a matter of putting one foot in front of the other, at least as far as the final pyramid. We had found our way past the cliff bands and had turned the defenses of a great mountain. Through the years as we had clung to ice and rock, chopped steps, and dangled from pitons, we had dreamed of climbing an Eight Thousander. Now the culmination of our mountaineering careers was going to be a trudge through soft snow with heavy packs. Just a walk - a walk in the sky. It seemed ridiculously simple. Yet we could barely move . . . Soon it was my turn again. One step, again up to the knees, and I bent double over the axe, gasping. One does not sweat at high altitude, but I could almost feel the water in my body departing through my lungs every time I exhaled into the dry air. Part of me seemed to stand aside and revile the inert figure hunched over the axe. "Don"t stand there, take another step, take another step, NOW." But it was impossible to move until I caught my breath. Another step, more gasping, and a wave of remorse swept over me as I knew I was letting everyone down. "Time," yelled Nevison, and as I sank into the slope the agony of failure was blunted by fatigue. Another hundred feet."