Eiger Dreams: Ventures Among Men And Mountains

a collection of short stories published by Krakauer in the 80s, this book is entertaining and easy to read. not at the level of "into thin air" and "into the wild", but still worth reading if you are a krakauer fan!

Loved this book. I am an avid reader of Krakauer. Anyone who enjoys the outdoors and all the splendor it has to offer will enjoy this book on more than one level. It offers great insight on some of the best climbs and some of the individuals who first climbed them or were crazy enough to attempt them!

Eiger Dreams is a collection of stories whose main topic is mountaineering. From the base camp of the Everest to the cold mountains of Alaska, the author takes us on a personal journey through some of the highest (and coldest) places on the Earth. It is a great read for anyone in love with the mountains (and you do not have to be a crazy climber to appreciate the read).

This is a nice collection of stories decently told. While I enjoyed the book, the chapters (stories) had no unifying themes or characters, resulting in little attachment or sense of being there. By comparison, Touching the Void or Hermann Buhl: Climbing Without Compromise were both far more gripping.

Very enjoyable read--these are short stories that, put together, read like a book. I couldn't get enough of these mountain climbing experiences and looked forward to crawling into bed each night and resuming the adventure. Jon Krakauer never disappoints!

I loved Into Thin Air by Krakauer, so I purchased several of his other books, including this one. While the stories were interesting, it lacked the depth I enjoy from a book (likely because it appears to be reprints of magazine articles). It also seems that most (if not all) of these articles are 20+ years old. For the same price as this book I would been better off with a years subscription to Adventure magazine.

Jon Krakauer writes in a descriptive way that anyone whom has ever lived a bit of the mountain lifestyle and been in intense mountain situations can understand. To know what it's like to be really cold, to know what it's like to be in a wrong turn you die situation, to know what it means to count on companions. Well written and a great read.

Because I am not widely traveled it thrills me to run into a mention of someplace I have been so it was with great delight that I read about Wengen/ Kleine Sheidig(sp) and the train inside the Eiger I could honestly say
" Been there done that " and it was a great book, as I find all of Jon's to be
My most recent read was " Forget ME Not" by Lowe-Anker and again, when she wrote about her marriage to Anker ( it was held at Villa Maria in Ravello) and I had walked those cobble stone steps to the Villa just 18 months ago What a thrill and surely one of the most memorable books I have ever read.

Very surprised, it reads like a excerpt of a legal brief from a court proceeding. Didn't seem like a book. Krackour way off his game. And at best only slightly interesting. And it comes across as a revenge hit peice cause Krackour lost like $75000 to charity. And 15 pages from the end I just stopped reading it, I found I didn't care how it ended lol. Odd book.

Eiger Dreams is a terrific collection of (mostly) previously published articles by mountaineering maestro, outdoorsman and internationally acclaimed writer Jon Krakauer.

I loved every one of these, there's not one single weak one. He writes about the summer when thirteen experienced climbers were killed on K2, about the glacier pilots of Talkeetna in Alaska who fly the climbers out to base camps under (a very risky business to be in!), and about the snobbery amongst the European mountaineering community of Chamonix. There is much humour, too ~ an amusing piece about the English Burgess brothers, Yorkshire 'scallywags' of the climbing world, and about the boredom of being stuck in a tent in inclement weather.

Best of all, at the end, there's a longer version of Krakauer's own experience, when he was twenty-three, of taking on the fearsome Devil's Thumb in Alaska ~ on his own (as opposed to the one included in Into The Wild). It's thrilling, funny and fascinating all at the same time, and the more I read all of these the more I wanted to know about the unusual people who become obsessed with this most dangerous of sports.

Very, very readable and highly recommended.

This book was first published by Lyons & Burford (New York) in 1990. The first Anchor Books paperback edition was published in 1997. The book contains 11 essays that appeared in the 1980s in magazines, principally "Outside" or "Smithsonian." Essay #12 was written for the book. The essay titles are
1. Eiger Dreams
2. Gill
3. Valdez Ice
4. On Being Tentbound
5. The Flyboys of Talkeetna
6. Club Denali
7. Chamonix
8. Canyoneering
9. A Mountain Higher than Everest?
10. The Burgess Boys
11. A Bad Summer [1986] on K2
12. The Devils Thumb.

As a flatlander unlikely ever to climb a soaring wall of ice-covered rock, I found Krakauer's stories gripping, like tales of life on another planet. Yes, there are people who seek out high, rough mountains, in freezing weather, & the author is one of them. The essays tell of his adventures & those of others who set out to conquer mountains from Alaska to the Alps to Mt. Everest.

Highly, highly recommended.

P.S. Looking for more reviews? There are many reviews at the listing for the reprint edition (2009): Eiger Dreams: Ventures Among Men and Mountains.

People have always pushed to accomplish more. When one of my best friends took up mountain climbing well into his fifties after he back wasn't up to golf any more, I began to wonder what the sport was all about. Having remembered that Jon Krakauer is both a wonderful writer and an adventuresome climber, it seemed like I might learn the answers by reading this book. I was more than amply rewarded for my curiosity.

Knowing that adventures are better heard as a story rather than read, I also opted for Philip Franklin's reading for Books on Tape. This was a stunningly good choice. Mr. Franklin makes you feel like you are right there as you look down from dizzying heights of thousands of feet while being held up by a small patch of crumbling ice.

The diversity of the stories is remarkable, from those who want to set records for getting up dangerous new routes to those who want to set records for speed in sport climbing (lots of strength and technique but not much risk). I was very surprised by some of the stories, including the ones about climbing "impossible" boulders that might be only 30 feet high and tall columns of crumbling frozen water . . . unattached to any nearby rock.

Mr. Krakauer has a wonderful ability to bring you into the stories by recounting his own fearful beginnings as a climber and the ways that he has sought release from humdrum cares by climbing. You'll find yourself chilled to the bone in places, even though you may be sitting in front of a roaring fire. It's a great trip!

I don't think I'll take up climbing, but I am indebted to this brilliant exposition of climbing's appeal.

People have always pushed to accomplish more. When one of my best friends took up mountain climbing well into his fifties after he back wasn't up to golf any more, I began to wonder what the sport was all about. Having remembered that Jon Krakauer is both a wonderful writer and an adventuresome climber, it seemed like I might learn the answers by reading this book. I was more than amply rewarded for my curiosity.

Knowing that adventures are better heard as a story rather than read, I also opted for Philip Franklin's reading for Books on Tape. This was a stunningly good choice. Mr. Franklin makes you feel like you are right there as you look down from dizzying heights of thousands of feet while being held up by a small patch of crumbling ice.

The diversity of the stories is remarkable, from those who want to set records for getting up dangerous new routes to those who want to set records for speed in sport climbing (lots of strength and technique but not much risk). I was very surprised by some of the stories, including the ones about climbing "impossible" boulders that might be only 30 feet high and tall columns of crumbling frozen water . . . unattached to any nearby rock.

Mr. Krakauer has a wonderful ability to bring you into the stories by recounting his own fearful beginnings as a climber and the ways that he has sought release from humdrum cares by climbing. You'll find yourself chilled to the bone in places, even though you may be sitting in front of a roaring fire. It's a great trip!

I don't think I'll take up climbing, but I am indebted to this brilliant exposition of climbing's appeal.

I've never climbed anything more challenging than a bunk bed, but after reading the essays in "Eiger Dreams" I felt like I had an insight into the thrills and terrors that attract mountain climbers to dizzying and dangerous heights. Krakauer says in his introduction that he doesn't just want to describe climbing, he wants the reader to begin to understand why climbers are so relentlessly obsessive about their sport. I think he was successful in this respect.
He also touches on many different aspects of the sport, including what it's like to be stuck in your tent for days on end; the rewards and repercussions of solo climbing; the challenge laid down by legendary climber Reinhold Messner, who eschewed pre-prepared routes and bottled oxygen; and the culture of climbing towns which are packed to the gills with climbers of varying degrees of skill and equipment.
My favorite essay is the last one, probably because it's the most personal to the author. In it he tells the story of how he quit his dead-end job and spent his last dollar on an ambitious attempt to become the first climber to scale the north face of the Devil's Thumb, an imposing Alaskan peak. This piece is repeated in Krakauer's later book "Into the Wild", but it is definitely worth reading twice if you have both books.
My only complaint is that I got more out of Krakauer's later books "Into the Wild" and "Into Thin Air", if only because they deal with a single narrative and draw the reader that much deeper into the lives of their obsessed protagonists. The essays in "Eiger Dreams" do not explore as deeply as those later books, but they still do a good job of reflecting the excitement and danger inherent in the sport.

Krakauer is fine author. His stories read like well honed long magazine articles and capture the drama and danger of high altitude mountain climbing (Into Thin Air) as well as mental soloing(Into The Wild).
Eiger Dreams is a collection of stories about mountaineering and mountaineering culture. This collection of a dozen or so chapters (I suspect all were magazine articles first) regales the reader with the danger of high-altitude climbing, the uniqueness of attitude among many of the climbers and a slice of the culture that surrounds the climbing world.
On the whole the stories are gripping and interesting. It falls short only in one or two instances when the author delves into set place stories like describing the town near Mt. Blanc that seems to derive it's personality from the towering rock and those who are drawn to it in great multitudes each year.
The chapters on individual climbs introduce the reader to the thrills and dangers of high-risk climbing, without the chance that one will tumble out of an armchair 10,000 feet to become part of a mountain. Particularly enjoyable are the articles on the North face of the Eiger, the author's own journey to solo climb Alaska's Devil's Thumb at age 23 and a chapter on the Burgesses -- two mountaineering hobos who combine moxie with single mindedness as they climb the world's tallest peaks. I also enjoyed the chapter detailing early attempts to divine whether or not Everest was really the tallest mountain -- some of the journeys associated with ascertaining the claims of competing peaks remind one of Scott's Polar expeditions -- fueled more by British resolve than planning and logistics.
One wonders at the bent of mind that draws climbers to the highest climbs. Mountains like Everest and K-2 are littered with well over a hundred corpses (it is to arduous in the thin air and brutal conditions to haul reachable bodies down -- and impossible for those who tumble a mile off the edge or several hundred feed down a crevasse). Something like one person perishes for every four who reach the summit of Everest. A strikingly large number of survivors endure amputations of fingers or toes. It is the same or worse at some of Nature's other monoliths.
This is a sport that makes auto racing and boxing seem like rational athletic endeavors. One is left to ponder why (perhaps no better answer exists than Mallory's "Because it is there") some are willing to risk life itself for the privilege of standing ten or so minutes atop one of the tallest mountains. Krakauer does not pursue this question directly, though the brief character sketches he paints of climbers -- including himself -- offers some conclusions.
A fast read and entertaining book.

I have read many mountain climbing books (I won't claim "most", because this is a prolific genre) and this is my favorite. It is a collection of John Krakauer's short stories from before he became famous by writing "Into Thin Air". These are gritty stories with a humor and adventure. I read it over and over and love it every time.

My favorite short story is here "The Devil's Thumb" about the author's attempt to climb an obscure mountain in Alaska when he was younger. It is a humorous and enjoyable look into his head and most climbers will relate (this story is also in "Into the Wild"). "Eiger Dreams", the title story is equally enjoyable with some humorous anecdotes and historical vignettes about climbing the Eiger.

These short stories of Mr. Krakauer's read quickly and hold your attention. This is the book to bring along on a trip, an approach, or to read in a tent. Laugh a little and enjoy climbing by someone who understands it.

What makes men and women want to climb mountains? Or, in the case of one article in this collection, climb boulders? That theme ties "Eiger Dreams" together. Most of the true stories are author Krakauer's first hand accounts, but several deal with other climbers' adventures.

These articles were all written years before Krakauer's fateful 1996 summit of Mount Everest, and anyone who picks the book up expecting another "Into Thin Air" will be disappointed. If you're looking for a fairly varied group of climbing-themed nonfiction tales, though, these collected reprints of Kraukauer's earlier works for periodicals should both interest and inform you. I especially enjoyed the colorful characters, and one of the most colorful turned out to be the very young author-to-be himself.

--Reviewed by Nina M. Osier, author of "Love, Jimmy: A Maine Veteran's Longest Battle"

How to do justice to a writer like Krakauer....well, he's such a good writer that I feel any review I write would suffer compared to the source. Nevertheless, here I go.
This is Krakauer's first book. It's a collection of his previously published articles on mountaineering (save the last one about Devil's Thumb which was written for the book.) What a gread read too whether you are an afficionado of the sport or, like me, you've never seen a pair of crampons in your life (by the way, those are a set of spikes climbers strap to their boots to support themselves and prevent slipping on icy slopes.) Some of the famous peaks that make an appearance here include K2, Mt McKinley, and the titular Eiger. Throughout you will read about some of the eccentric personalities in the international climbing community, personal triumph and inspiration, offshoots like bouldering and waterfall climbing, and horrific tragedy.
If you read Into Thin Air, you'll be surprised at how funny this book is. Krakauer displays a wry, self-deprecating wit in several of these stories-something the somber subject matter of the latter book didn't permit. The last one, about his decision to solo the Devil's Thumb in Alaska in his early twenties is hysterical.
Anyone who can make a story about being tentbound or the inventor of the perfect ice axe riveting deserves attention. If you are on the fence, just go ahead and get this book. It's definitely worth it.

Jon Krakauer brought around another great book.

The short story element of this book was part of the appeal. He covers a lot of different climbing aspects in one book, telling the stories that everyone wants to hear but hasn't yet heard. Krakauer definitely has his own literary voice, and it comes through here. While it's not as gripping as Into Thin Air, mostly because you don't invest as much into each short story, I was no less motivated to read. The most fascinating story of all of them was one of the last, when he went to Devils Thumb by himself. Loved that one above all.

Can't wait to read more from Krakauer!

A nice compilation of all important experiences and matters related to mountain/rock/boulder climbing; and even a chapter devoted to the mind-numbingly boring and claustrophobic experience of waiting out stormy weather for days on end en route to summit. My only critique is the format of the book, which comprises unconnected chapters which can never fully ground the reader in the characters and stories.