To the Greatest Heights: Facing Danger, Finding Humility, and Climbing a Mountain of Truth – A Memoir

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, O’Brien’s life was suddenly turned upside down. After years of climbing the corporate ladder to great success, her career went into a tailspin, and she found herself searching for a new purpose in life. She settled on an unlikely goal: climbing Everest.

Two years later, humbled by a failed summit attempt, she made it to the top of the world. And then she kept going.

Vanessa not only held her own in the intensely competitive world of mountaineering but she thrived, leading her to the ultimate challenge: K2, the “Savage Mountain”, which kills one out of every four climbers who summit. Yet Vanessa was determined to beat the odds; she was not unused to hard work or hardship, having made her own way in the world as a teen after a devastating loss that destroyed her family.

Over the course of her climbs, Vanessa evolved from an adventurer looking to challenge herself into an explorer developing a high-altitude perspective on a changing world—and with a new call to share her knowledge and passion across the globe. Told with heart and humor, Vanessa’s journey from suburban America to Everest’s Death Zone and, finally, to the summit of K2 is a story of resilience, higher purpose, and the courage to overcome any obstacle.

O’Brien has a long list of achievements – summitted five 8000m peaks (Shishapangma 2011, Cho Oyu 2011, Everest 2012, Manaslu 2014, K2 2017), climbed the Seven Summits, skied the last degree to both the North (2013) and South (2012) Poles, reached Challenger Deep (2020), and exceeded the Karman Line with Blue Origin (2022).