Blind Corners: Adventures on Everest and the World's Tallest Peaks [Paperback]

Geoff Tabin (Author), Sir Edmund Hillary (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2002

Mountain climbing adventures around the world.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"An astonishing mixture of wild adventure and the overcoming of formidable challenges."
--Sir Edmund Hillary

"A good-natured autobiographical account of the climber's life and exploits. Rabin provides interesting personality sketches of some of the unusual characters. Includes enough details about rope work and climbing technique to make the book a learning experience. A pleasant adventure read."--KLIATT

From the Back Cover

What is it like to have reached the tallest summits on the globe? Find out in Blind Corners, Geoff Tabin's fascinating book on his quest to find the ultimate adventure. Travel with Tabin across seven continents as he takes readers, from Kenya to Alaska to Nepal, where he begins his ascent of the most challenging mountain of all-Everest. He shares his experiences trekking up the daunting Kangshung Face, easily the mountain's most difficult route, as well as those of fellow climbers, including the first American woman to climb Everest.Filled with suspense, candor, keen insight, and mischievous humor, Blind Corners conveys both the terror and the exhilaration of nature's greatest challenges. Recounting everything from the world's first bungee jump to his ascent of Everest, Tabin lays out his philosophy of climbing, offers tips on keeping adventure in your life after having realized dream goals, and warns against the dangers of guided expeditions on perilous climbs, which by now have become routine.More than just a book on climbing the highest peaks of the world, Blind Corners is a richly detailed chronicle of adventure, comradeship, and inner strength. (6 x 9, 304 pages)Geoff Tabin writes an adventure column, "View from the Top," for Penthouse and has written for Outside, Success, Climbing, and Playboy, among other periodicals. He has also contributed to four other mountaineering books and has appeared on The American Sportsman and Late Night with David Letterman. He lives in Burlington, Vermont.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: The Lyons Press; 1st edition (October 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585743445
• ISBN-13: 978-1585743445
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,500,182 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Adventure at its best!!! Real life and well written., April 23, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Blind Corners: Adventures on Seven Continents (Hardcover)

Geoff Tabin, mountain climber, adventurer and writer, takes his readers from the jungles of New Guinea to the peak of Mount Everst. Along the way you'll stop on the highest point on each of the seven continents and meet many of the authors friends, living and dead. Tabin fills the pages with subzero temperatures and the burning hot passions of climbers as they ascend and descend the famous and unknown peaks around the world. The author expresses his on personal reasons for undertaking adventures that others may think insane. With an extensive list of dead friends Tabin both memorializes the mountains and the climbers who scale the stone and ice. The books only short coming is it length. Tabin leaves his readers thirsty for more and higher adventures. As close to the summit as you can get without supplemental oxygen

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What a great book!, November 28, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Blind Corners: Adventures on Everest and the World's Tallest Peaks (Paperback)

This book caught me by surprise. I would not have noticed this book on my own, as the title does not grab me. However a friend recommended it to me, and I like adventure books, so I picked it up. It is extremely well written, taking the reader along on fast paced and humerous adventures-from Africa to Antarctica to New Guinea; from the invention of Bungee Jumping to scaling the last unclimbed face of Mt Everest. So on one level it works brilliantly as a fast paced, interconnected collection of short stories describing amazing and crazy adventures by the author and by a cross section of his amazing and crazy acquaintances. But it is more than that. As I read the various vignettes, I found myself viewing adventuring from the unique perspective of the author. Not "thrill seeking", but as a life long quest to maximize life's experiences while maintaing deep respect for the physical and human landscapes encountered along the way. It also gave me a deeper understanding of the events and personalities that led to the recent tragedies on Mount Everest, a view perhaps clearer and certainly different from that gained by reading "Into Thin Air". Finally I was extremely impressed by the authors description towards the end of the book of the author's recent efforts to cure cataract blindess among the peoples of the Himalayas. These passages are not written as self-aggrandizing, but rather continue the themes of the rest of the book, atking the reader into a different part of the world with both humor and insight. Throughout, the book emphasizes that one does not need to go to the ends of the world or be a world-class athlete to live adventures. By the end, the adventure stories and the descriptions of the humanitarian efforts together left me inspired to think about my own life and how I might try to maximize my own fun quotient and perhaps do more good at the same time. Any book that leaves you rethinking your own life while fantasizing about doing more has to be at the top ones read list. This is a wonderful book-and given its limited exposure, it is a hidden gem.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More surprises, December 22, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Blind Corners: Adventures on Everest and the World's Tallest Peaks (Paperback)

Having read and enjoyed the first edition of Blind Corners, I became curious about the second edition from the comments Amazon.com provides. Sure enough, I am glad I ordered it. Tabin's encounters with the people of the Himalayas are unique since his adventures now include the way in which medical care is usually given there and the amazing way in which he and his team manage to cure blindness there. As another reviewer says, this read inspires me to think of adventure, and at the same time doing good, in my everyday life. It surpises me to be thinking about my life because of a book that is so much fun.