Fragile Edge: A Personal Portrait of Loss on Everest (Paperback)

~ Maria Coffey (Author), Chris Bonington (Foreword) "That February night in 1982 is still clear in my memory..." (more)
Key Phrases: summit attempt, food tent, Hong Kong, Kangshung Face, Advance Base (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A vivid, insightful book about Everest's real victims-the loved ones of the climbers who don't make it back." By: David Breashears --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Product Description

An intimate story of personal cost, risk, and loss in the mountaineering world.

Nobody has written more eloquently about the human side of high-altitude mountaineering than Maria Coffey. Because the mountaineering world has faced so many devastating losses recently, this is an especially timely story about the loved ones left behind to sort out their sorrow and confusion, anger and healing.

With openness and honesty, Coffey describes her love affair with elite British mountaineer Joe Tasker, who perished with his climbing partner Peter Boardman while attempting Everest's then-unclimbed Northeast Ridge in 1982. She relives her experiences, first within the hard-partying mountaineering scene and then during her long journey to understanding and acceptance of the tragedy that cost her the man she loved. She gives us an insider's view of the life of a world-class mountaineer and recounts her deeply moving pilgrimage with Boardman's widow across Tibet, a journey that retraced Tasker and Boardman's steps to their abandoned Advance Base Camp at 21,000 feet on Everest.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 190 pages
• Publisher: Mountaineers Books; 1st U.S. Ed edition (September 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0898867371
• ISBN-13: 978-0898867374
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #776,614 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For those left behind, May 17, 2000

By	saliero (NSW Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fragile Edge: Loss on Everest (Paperback)

This is a very good book, presenting a very different perspective on mountaineering. This is the impact that the sport / lifestyle has on those at home - the loved ones.

Maria Coffey provides a frank account of her life in and around the hard-partying, high stakes lifestyle of the British climbing community in the late 1970s and early 1980s. She falls in love with Joe Tasker, who disappeared on Mt Everest in 1982 with Pete Boardman. They were part of the British team attempting the east north east ridge ascent. Chris Bonington was part of that team.

After their death, Maria, and Hilary, Boardman's widow undertake their own journey to Tibet - seeking resolution, answers, closeness to their lovers...

She is very frank about the nature of her relationship with Tasker and her fears, his shortcomings as a partner etc. The second part is about the journey Maria takes, both physical, and emotional in dealing with the loss of a partner.

In a way, it seems Hilary was better able to deal with the emotional trauma because of the surety of her relationship with Boardman. Maria and Joe had yet to make a long-term commitment.

A frank and revealing and very personal story. If you are addicted to Everest and mountaineering books (as I am) this is a worthy one to add to the collection.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars THE LONG GOODBYE..., June 3, 2001

By	Lawyeraau (Balmoral Castle) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

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What happens to the loved ones of mountaineers who perish while seeking to climb higher peaks or pioneer new routes on challenging mountains? The author attempts to answer this question with her well written and deeply personal account.

The author was intimately involved in the mountaineering world of the nineteen seventies and early nineteen eighties. At the time she was in the throes of an intense love affair with Joe Trasker, the British climber who perished in 1982 with his regular climbing partner, Peter Boardman, while attempting to climb the then unclimbed Northeast ridge of Everest.

The author offers an intriguing, birdseye view into the tight circle of the mountaineering elite through her relationship with Joe Trasker. The book, however, is not about climbing, per se. It is more of a personal catharsis of her relationship with Joe Trasker.

Still, this makes for an interesting read. The book is divided into two parts. The first concerns itself with the Joe that was living. The second part concerns itself with the Joe that had perished.

The first part chronicles their relationship, which was intense. It also seemed to be a little one sided. The author makes it fairly clear to the reader that Joe Trasker did not seem to have the same commitment to the relationship that the author seems to have had. Her reluctance to let the relationship go appears to have been based more upon what the relationship could have been, rather than upon what it actually was. As they say, love is blind.

The second part of the book chronicles her coming to terms with his death. She does this by joining up with Peter Boardman's widow, Hilary, and setting off on a journey to Tibet and, ultimately, to Everest in an attempt to connect to Joe one final time, as well as to seek closure to a part of her life that was no more.

Sensitively written and finely drawn, her pain is palpable and her story moving. It is, above all, a fitting tribute to Joe Trasker, the man who inspired such devotion.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lost Love, November 12, 2001

By	Laura Drury (Mount Vernon, WA) - See all my reviews

Lost Love
Fragile Edge: A Personal Portrait of Loss on Everest
Reviewed by Laura Drury

One rainy day, I curled up on the couch with a steaming cup of coffee and Maria Coffey's book, Fragile Edge, intending to spend a couple of pleasurable hours reading. As it happened, I did not stop after a couple of hours. I read the whole book that day.

From the beginning I knew that Joe Tasker, her lover and well-known British mountain-climber, had died in a climbing accident on Everest and that this had affected her deeply. Even though I knew the end of the story, Maria's conversational style of storytelling kept me glued to my seat. It was as if she were sitting in my living room, telling me all the details of her lost love.

Even so, Coffey's book is not a tragedy. It's a vicarious peek into a life of thrilling uneasiness, alternating with periods of intense passion. It is the story of how one woman coped with the strain of "the unseen menace, dormant but stirring." Maria described herself as "a climber's girlfriend, left at home, watching for mail". The many farewells were difficult for her. "There was always that wrenching in the gut when he walked away and three months of uncertainty stretched ahead like a tunnel with no light at the end." But when he returned from his dangerous expeditions, remembers Coffey, "there would be a resurgence of feeling between us, an excitement as fresh and keen as when we were first together".

This is also the story of Maria Coffey's and Hilary Rhodes' (Boardman's wife) month long trip to the advance base camp of their loved ones' last climb. They did it to find closure and say goodbye as they left mementos at a memorial cairn that had been erected for the two lost climbers. They planted a little garden of edelweiss and mosses. They mourned and grieved, then laughed and sang with their Chinese hosts. They came to terms with their loss and made peace with Everest. They decided that regretting was of no use.

Fragile Edge gives the average person insight into the world of serious mountaineering. "I was in love with a man who courted death, whose life made more sense to him if he pushed its limits," observed Coffey. In Joe Tasker's own words, "I sometimes wonder why I can't be content with Sunday rock climbs." The fatality rate among high-altitude mountaineers is supposedly one in ten. It is a world that most of us observe from the safety of our less-than-dangerous lives.