Forever on the Mountain: The Truth Behind One of Mountaineering's Most Controversial and Mysterious Disasters [Paperback]

James M. Tabor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 17, 2008

Winner of the 2007 Banff Mountain Festival Book Awards Grand Prize (The Phyllis & Don Munday Award): "A riveting account of a long-ago mountaineering disaster."—Time

In 1967, seven young men, members of a twelve-man expedition led by twenty-four-year-old Joe Wilcox, were stranded on Alaska's Mount McKinley in a vicious arctic storm. All seven perished on what remains the most tragic expedition in American climbing history. Revisiting the event in the tradition of Norman Maclean's Young Men and Fire, James M. Tabor uncovers elements of controversy, finger-pointing, and cover-up that combine to make this disaster unlike any other.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Tabor's exhaustive look at the doomed 1967 expedition to scale Alaska's Mt. McKinley is an often gripping, detailed account of the infamous climb that remains controversial. Only five of the 12-man team survived the ascent to the 20,320-foot summit, making it one of the deadliest mountaineering disasters in North America. The journey was fraught with tension from the beginning: the National Park Service (NPS) required a group of nine men, led by Joe Wilcox, to merge with a three-member party of Coloradoans, led by Howard Snyder. Wilcox and Snyder clashed almost immediately. Both men survived and went on to retell the trip in books: Snyder in his 1973 version that mostly blamed Wilcox's leadership; Wilcox's account in 1981 cited an overpowering storm as the culprit in the deaths. Tabor (who hosted PBS's Great Outdoors) shows that the NPS was very slow to react and might have saved the climbers with quicker response. His writing about the brutal difficulties of climbing Mt. McKinley in subfreezing temperatures with hurricane-like wind in blizzard conditions is breathtaking, although he lapses into minutiae and repeats details, particularly regarding the accident's investigation. His profiles of the expedition's survivors 40 years later make for a strong conclusion to the book. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"Grips even non-climbers..." Washington Post "Tabor analyzes this debacle with the doggedness of an investigative reporter and the technical knowledge of an experienced climber." Wall Street Journal"

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Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (June 17, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393331962
• ISBN-13: 978-0393331967
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #290,591 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

James M. Tabor was born in Virginia, graduated from the University of Vermont, and has lived in Vermont since 1980. He earned an MFA from Johns Hopkins University and is a former Contributing Editor to Outside and SKI Magazines. His writing has also appeared in TIME, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Smithsonian, Barron's,and many other national magazines. He was the writer and host of the national PBS series, "The Great Outdoors." In 2007, he was the co-creator and Executive Producer for the History Channel Special, "Journey to the Center of the World." His last book was the international-award-winning FOREVER ON THE MOUNTAIN (2007). His new book, BLIND DESCENT (www.blinddescent.com), was named an Amazon Best Book of the Month for June 2010.

Amazon suggests sharing interesting anecdotes with readers, so here's one. I received my MFA in the depths of a recession and couldn't find a job to save my life. With a wife and new baby, and needing a paycheck, I joined the Metropolitan Police Department of Washington, D.C.--then notorious as "The Murder Capitol of America." Policing in D.C. was exciting, exhausting,and dangerous. For a white, upper-middle class, son of the South,(my great-grandfather Russell Tabor was a cavalryman with Jeb Stuart) it was also an incredibly valuable, heart-opening, and rewarding experience. My next book may be a memoir of those days on the street.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

69 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Survivor's Viewpoint, August 28, 2007

By 

P. Schlichter (Colorado) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Forever on the Mountain: The Truth Behind One of Mountaineering's Most Controversial and Mysterious Disasters (Hardcover)

As one of the survivors of the climb described in Forever on the Mountain, I believe the book to be very well researched and well written-- of interest to almost all involved in climbing.

To me there is no great mystery. A vicious storm resulted in the deaths of seven climbers. Delays and bureaucratic bungling in declaring an emergency and in launching an all-out rescue may have frustrated all but changes would not have resulted in saving the seven lives.

One weakness in the book results from the author "imagining" what occurred and by doing so leading readers to think the summit team dug snow caves and survuved for severeal days in those caves. I don't believe that happened.

The book by Howard Snyder, The Hall of the Mountain King, about the same climb is a precise description of the climb although it highlights some biases against the Wilcox faction.

Overall- well done but readers must separate fact from authors guesses as to what happened.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Who do we blame for a natural tragedy?, October 9, 2007

By 

Carl of Mariemont (Mariemont, OH United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Forever on the Mountain: The Truth Behind One of Mountaineering's Most Controversial and Mysterious Disasters (Hardcover)

The seven who died on Denali were likely doomed at the moment the five on top decided to go for the summit. They couldn't have known that, because they had no idea about the weather headed their way. Neither did anyone else, apparently. (Even if someone had hinted at a storm, the storm that hit was extraordinary.)

I had a hard time understanding why Wilcox was the target of blame for the tragedy. Even if all of the criticisms of the expedition are accepted, they seem to have little causal relation to the deaths on the mountain. His decisionmaking should be judged based on the situation as it unfolded, not as we now know it ultimately would unfold. Only his failure to call for a full rescue effort at the first opportunity may have made a difference, yet that gets little play. The failure of Park Service officials to appreciate the emergency and act promptly is troubling, yet there remains a serious question as to whether that would have ultimately made a difference.

I knew nothing about the 1967 disaster before I read this book, so all of my views are formed by its contents. My primary criticism is the effort to reconstruct conversations for which there is no living witness. Tabor would have been better to describe his conjectures without the level of false precision implicit in his faux dialogue or description of their actions during the storm. Even though a reasonably careful reader would not be misled, it puts the reader needlessly on guard, even during the eyewitness accounts.

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Memories, September 3, 2007

By 

Cheryl (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Forever on the Mountain: The Truth Behind One of Mountaineering's Most Controversial and Mysterious Disasters (Hardcover)

As a person who had close ties to the expedition, both in the planning and the aftermath, I found this book to be an accurate account of the tragic events that occurred. The book brought back 40 years worth of memories, just like they had happened yesterday.