Everest - The First Ascent:
How a Champion of Science Helped to Conquer the Mountain
by Harriet Pugh Tuckey
This time I’m freely admitting that the failure is all on my side. This was a great book—half biography and half science, all clearly written, engaging, and thoroughly researched. It took me an awfully long time to read it because I kept finding excuses to put it down in favor of something livelier. Silly of me, but that was the mood I was in.
I started off thinking it was all science and so I was surprised when the oxygen-assisted ascent of Everest was over and the book wasn’t half done. The second half turns a more personal side, finishing the life story of Griffith Pugh, the scientist responsible for the success of the Everest climb. He also did groundbreaking research on hypothermia, high-altitude exercise, and the physiology of high-endurance athletes. But the book also reveals the author, his daughter--how her research changed her opinion of her father from ill-tempered beast who mistreated her mother, into a man with personality flaws and a talent for success at any cost. Scientific success, not personal. She came to admire that part of him and so did I.
Lot of good stuff here, it just didn't resonate with me. With others, it will.
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