WHITE LADDER

Subtitled 'Triumph and Tragedy at the Dawn of Mountaineering', this is the true story of the thrill-seekers, map-makers, soldiers, occultists, artists and porters who paved the way for modern mountain climbing and it is the Winner of the 2025 National Outdoor Book Award For History/Biography. Beautiful, remote and dangerous - for generations we have looked to the mountains in awe. Yet, for most, that is where the fascination ends. For a rare few, however, the allure of the peaks proved irresistible. There are the devout Incan priests who, scaling the Andes' icy slopes to pay tribute to each mountain's 'Great Lord', travelled higher than any European would for centuries. The Gurkha riflemen who joined their commanders in canvassing the Karakoram, admiring the distant summits of Broad Peak and K2 with gleeful anticipation. The tweed-clad Victorian mountaineers who made the first serious assaults on Everest in the Himalaya, roped together as they ventured into the frozen unknown, hauling yards upon yards of battered rope through the cold. Tracing the world altitude record from the ashy slopes of the sacred volcano Llullaillaco to the icy crags and crevasses of the Karakoram, Daniel Light takes a panoramic journey through the storied history of mountaineering before Everest. Joining a cast of colourful characters, the book offers an ode to mountains' capacity to enthral, and the fundamental human drive to climb higher and higher. Chapters include Mountain Sickness, Friction, Nature at Her Wildest, Baptism of Ice and Sleep of the Just among them. 'Thrilling... Daniel Light delivers stories that are poetic, spiritual and astonishing in their courage and drive.' - Sonia Purnell. 412 pages, 29 illustrations including artist impression of George Mallory and 19 archive photos, plus maps including the peaks and places of the White Ladder.