Halfway to Heaven: My White-knuckled--and Knuckleheaded--Quest for the Rocky Mountain High
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The beloved author of The Big Year embarks on an outrageous midlife mountain-climbing adventure scaling Colorado's famous Fourteeners. Publishers Weekly In this hilarious midlife picaresque, journalist Obmascik (The Big Year) set himself the goal of climbing all 54 Colorado mountain peaks that are higher than 14,0000 feet because it was both hard, and not too hard-thousands have completed the technically undemanding circuit. He hit the gym, pared two pounds from his flabby frame and spent a summer plodding and wheezing up the "fourteeners," trying to keep up with the better-conditioned women and older men who cruised past toward the summits. Obmascik dodged lightning bolts, took a few hair-raising tumbles, admired the majestic scenery and experienced the exaltation of having truly earned his post-climb bacon double-cheeseburgers. Above all, he bonded with his "man-dates"-male climbing partners who head to the hills seeking refuge from woman troubles, fear of needles and numbing desk jobs. Their slightly feckless masculinity harmonizes with the shaggy-dog stories the author sprinkles in about the miners, cannibals and odious Texans who populate Colorado's mountain lore. Instead of the rarefied spirituality of typical mountaineering narratives, Obmascik's saga revels in off-color jokes and humiliating pratfalls; the result feels like a raucous bowling night, with moderate oxygen deprivation, on the brink of an abyss. (May 12)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Introduction 11 Failure 5Grays PeakTorreys Peak2 Religious Experience 11Mount of the Holy Cross3 The Mission Takes Shape 22Huron PeakQuandary PeakLa Plata PeakMount ShermanMount YaleMount Princeton4 The Monkey 35Creston NeedleHumboldt PeakMount ElbertGrays PeakTorreys Peak5 Man-Date 59Missouri Mountain6 Panic 72Mount Antero7 Shock 81Mount Massive8 Bulldog 97Mount ShavanoTabeguace Peak9 Punishment 107Mount Columbia10 Blown Away 111Mount EvansMount Bierstadt11 The Elephant 118Mount BelfordMount Oxford12 One Benjamin Franklin 123Culebra PeakSan Luis Peak13 Gravity 137Little Bear PeakBlanca PeakEllingwood Point14 Guts 148Wetterborn PeakUncompahgre PeakRedcloud PeakSunshine Peak15 Scruples 175Mount DemocratMount LincolnMount Bross16 Gnawed 182Mount Lindsey17 Day at the Office 188Pyramid Peak18 Limits 196Maroon PeakCastle Peak19 Man Maker 207Missouri Mountain20 The Needles 212Mount EolusSunlight PeakWindom Peak21 The Bald Leading the Blind 228Wilson Peak22 Homestretch 236Handies PeakMount SneffelsSnowmass MountainKit Carson PeakChallenger PointMount HarvardCapitol PeakEl Diente PeakMount WilsonNorth Maroon PeakCrestone Peak23 Return 249Longs Peak24 Summit 260Pikes PeakBibliography 267Acknowledgments 271
