World-famous mountaineer Reinhold Messner's account of his first ascent on Everest, made without supplemental oxygen, and considered to be an impossible feat at the time.

Reinhold Messner with his partner Peter Habeler was the first to climb Everest without the aid of supplemental oxygen. In this riveting retelling of his climb, Messner says, "Everest by fair means-that is the human dimension, and that is what interests me . . . In reaching for an oxygen cylinder, a climber degrades Everest. . . . A climber who doesn't rely on his own strength and skills, but on apparatus and drugs, deceives himself."

In this mountaineering classic, Messner recounts the thoughts of a mountaineer during the climb of his life. Messner's compelling climbing chronicle conveys the exhaustion, despair and exhilaration of mountaineering in the death zone; interleafed with spectacular color photographs. A must-have for any reader of adventure narratives.