Icefall: Adventures at the Wild Edges of Our Dangerous, Changing Planet

In May 2014, mountaineer and professor of geography John All plunged into a crevasse on Himlung (23,430’, 2014), a fall that all but killed him. He recorded a series of dramatic videos as he struggled to climb seven stories back up to the surface with a severely dislocated shoulder, internal bleeding, a battered face covered in blood, and fifteen broken bones--including six cracked vertebrae. The videos became a viral sensation, an urgent and gripping dispatch from one of the least-known extremes of the planet.

Yet this climb for his life is only the latest of All’s adventures in some of Earth’s most hostile climates. He has also been chased by a wild hyena, scaled Everest (2010, 2014), and narrowly missed being hit by an avalanche, all in pursuit of his true calling: the study of how we can master the challenge of our world’s changing climate. Icefall is a thrilling adventure story and a report from the extremes of the planet, taking you to collapsing Andean glaciers, hidden jungles in Honduras, and the highest points on Earth. In this gripping account, our changing climate is not a matter of politics; it’s a matter of life and death and the human will to survive and thrive in the face of it.