I haven't read this book but I've read Krakauer & Boukreev at least 7 times each. It is public knowledge that Lene G. did not pay Mountain Madness the full fee to be guided up the mountain. Ask Karen Dickenson. Maybe that's why Fischer's expedition had few (and inferior) radios. Hopefully LG paid Mountain Madness (after the fact) with the profits from her book. Otherwise she's just a user who used Fischer's good nature to sleaze her way into his expedition. Even if she paid, it's too late. I have zero respect for her. I would like to read her book but I won't buy it.

I was so looking forward to reading this book. I wanted to read about a woman's experience on Everest, particularly during the 1996 season so well written about by others (particularly Krakauer). How disappointed and let down can one be!

I agree with the climber below (Gabrielle). I have never, not never will climb mountains, but I founbd this to be self-indulgent and full of new age psycho-babble.

I found her atttitude towards others patronising, especially in an excrutiating couple of exchanges with Boukreev....one where she offers the "poor boy" from Kazakhstan rolls of film, beciuse she is so liberally endowed by her sponsors.

In fact the whole book read like one written to satisfy some sponsorship deal. It was lazily written - much barely edited journal writings.

Didn't add anything to my knowledge of or voracious interest in Everest and other high peaks, and doesn't capture the "women's experience" as well as, for example, Arlene Blum in "Annapurna".

Am still searching for something terrific by a woman climber on Everest!

Early on in his classic "Into Thin Air", Jon Krakauer recounts how his team leader, Rob Hall, was stung when fellow New Zealander and Everest legend Sir Edmund Hillary denounced the business of "guided climbs" on the mountain. This book tends to reinforce Hillary's point of view. The author was a client on Scott Fischer's team, one of Hall's competitors, and, as dozens of others have observed, it is primarily an exercise in shallow ego gratification, and a poorly wriiten one at that. To be fair, to simply get up Everest, even with Sherpas and guides doing most of the support work, is no mean feat; nonetheless a non-climber like myself has to wonder whether these people are really entitled to claim Everest as a trophy. Her repeated blather about being the "first Scandinavian woman" on the summit seems banal, I mean, what's next, the first gay Mexican to make the top? And her constant use of phrases like "Sagamartha, Mother Goddess of the Earth" starts to sound smarmy and condescending, heck, according to Krakauer even the Sherpas mostly refer to it simply as "Everest".

The point is, these guided climbs offer a great opportunity for self-absorbed overachievers to make a name for themselves while in the process diluting the achievements of true experts. After all, if (as of 1996) some 600+ successful ascents had been logged, laymen like myself who aren't a part of the climbing fraternity might easily wonder what's so special about the whole thing. Of course, these expeditions do inject lots of badly needed cash into the Sherpas' economy, nonetheless one is inclined to wonder if the "sport" of mountaineering wouldn't be better served, as Krakauer himself suggested in passing near the end of his book, by simply banning oxygen from Everest. If nothing else, it would keep the hacks and wannabes off the hill and restore the summit to its status as a place open only to the very best climbers.