Spirits of the Air

'Only the Spirits of the Air know what awaits me behind the mountains, but still I travel onwards' - this Eskimo proverb which Kurt Diemberger first heard in Greenland provides the leitmotif for a long awaited new volume of autobiography by one of Europe's most experienced and individualistic postwar climbers. In it he blends climbing and travelling impressions from Lapland to the Amazon, from Atlanta to the Shaksgam. His climbing embraces a family night scramble up Stromboli as well as filming from the summit of Everest; a first ascent and traverse on Zebru and going out with the rock buffs in Death Valley, California. His curiosity leads him in the wake of the early Greenland explorers and in quest of a camera-shy boa constrictor. His ascent of six 8000-metre peaks provokes good humoured style comparisons with Messner. His preferred west-alpine-style of climbing brings back memories of his first climbing guru, Hermann Buhl. His high-altitude filming recalls his expeditions with the English climber, Julie Tullis, who perished on K2, and with whom he celebrated the wild places of the world on film. Always on the move, making new friends in the more spectacular corners of the natural world, Kurt Diemberger shares his enjoyment with a quirky humour, a distinctly individual voice and a voracious appetite for life.