Lene Gammelgaard

This author likes to use exclamation marks! Her exclamatory, staccato, present tense writing, clumsily translated from the Danish and suffused with categorical spiritual and psychological pronouncements, make her account somewhat trying to read. The good news is that it is a quick read, with lots of double spacing between exclamation marks. There is also a level of self-involvement that make it feel claustrophobic - Gammelgaard is not one to situate anything in a context that goes beyond the purely personal. For more readable and informative accounts of modern day Everest expeditions one can do much better (e.g. Dark Summit, Into Thin Air, The Climb), but if one is particularly interested in the 1996 spring Everest expeditions that garnered so much attention, Gammelgaard's Climbing High is worth reading to get a different, if very narrow, perspective.… (altro)

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!… (altro)