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Thieves stole equipment on which the team’s lives depended, Kodas’s life was threatened by one of his teammates, and a climbing partner was beaten unconscious by another in Base Camp. He returned from the Himalaya disillusioned. But a plea for help from the daughter of a mountaineer who vanished on Everest on the very day that Kodas had retreated from his own disintegrating team prompted him to return to Everest and uncover an underworld that preys on unsuspecting climbers on major peaks around the world.
HIGH CRIMES is a shocking exposé of the dark underside of Everest: people stepping over dying climbers on their way up; unscrupulous con men who sell faulty oxygen tanks that leave climbers without air when their lives depend on it; drugs and prostitution in Base Camp; and people all but murdered in the cutthroat race to get to the top
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
February 19, 2008 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9781415949375
- File size: 328183 KB
- Duration: 11:23:42
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Climbing Mount Everest has always been an imposing prospect for the intrepid souls who brave its peaks, but, as author Michael Kodas makes clear, nowadays the thing to fear the most may not be the mountain's aloof and forbidding precipices, but the opportunistic shysters and outright criminals exploiting the legions of mountaineers making the climb. Kodas--who joined a diverse group of climbers in a major expedition--paints a world of international thievery and terror. Narrator Mark Deakins speaks in a refined tone as he details the ways suburban warriors--perhaps ones with too much time on their hands and too much money in their pockets--have soured the Everest experience. J.S.H. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine -
This fascinating work concerns the dark underworld that has grown out of the commercialization of Mount Everest. There's the story of the climber who was abandoned by his guide during an ascent and tales of scores of threats and assaults that have taken place on journeys to the world's highest peak. Providing listeners new insights into a largely unknown milieu, narrator Holter Graham offers a personal reading that captures the spirit of the tales, including reporter Kodas's account of his own trip to the top of Everest. Graham engages listeners as he makes each story as believable as it is thrilling. Listeners will find themselves shivering as they hear about bitter wintry nights and gasping for air as they climb higher and higher with Graham, who entertains to no end. L.B. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
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November 19, 2007
Journalist Kodas has written a disturbing account of stupidity and greed on the slopes of Mount Everest. On assignment for the Hartford Courant
in 2004, Kodas joined an expedition led by a couple who had summited the mountain more than a dozen times between them. As he moved up Everest, Kodas watched his expedition disintegrate in a mess of recriminations, thefts, lies and violence. At the same time, a sociopathic guide was leading a 69-year-old doctor to his death on the unforgiving slopes. The twin disasters led Kodas to delve into the commercialization of Mount Everest, and to discover that such experiences were becoming a depressing norm. A thorough reporter, Kodas does an excellent job exposing the ways in which money and ego have corrupted the traditional cultures of both mountaineers and their Sherpa guides. He also brings a painful focus to the delusions, misunderstandings and indifference that allow climbers to literally step over the bodies of dying people on their way to the top. Oddly enough, Kodas writes less ably about himself, and the reasons for his own expedition's collapse remain unclear; the sequencing of story lines is confusing as well. Nevertheless, his narrative is as hard to turn away from as a slow-motion train wreck.
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