Just for the love of it

What is it all about? * Photography * Foreword * To Buy

Cathy O’Dowd’s stunning book, sharing her passion for the world’s highest mountain through the extraordinary story of her first three Everest expeditions.

Latest reader feedback: “The cover of the book caught my attention and I was absolutely gripped from page 1. What amazing adventures you had as you climbed. My respect for you as a lady and a climber, climbed higher and higher with each page. Your style of writing kept me reading on and on, late into the night. The photos are beautiful and gave me a new appreciation of the task you had set yourself to climb the mountain from both sides. I admire your courage and thank you so much for sharing that part of your life with us.” Ruth Hendey, Pretoria

“The story of what she choose to do will haunt everyone who reads it.“ UK Daily Mail

English: Just for the love of it
German: Aus liebe zum berg

“It truly was one of the top 5 best Everest books I have read and I have read nearly all of them.“ Karl J. Landa

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What is the book all about?

At 8a.m. on 29 May Cathy O’Dowd, a 30-year-old mountaineer from South Africa, stepped onto the summit of Everest and into history. She had become the first woman to climb the highest mountain in the world from both its south (Edmund Hillary) and north (George Mallory) sides.

To achieve this, Cathy has had to face the ultimate risks of Everest. During her first ascent from the south in 1996, she and her team were trapped in the killer storm described in Jon Krakauer’s best seller Into Thin Air. They were the closest of any team to those stranded and dying in the storm. In the aftermath of the storm they retreated to base camp.

While other teams were packing up to leave they chose to try again. They finally reached the summit, only to have the thrill of success snatched away when a team member disappeared on the descent.

In 1998 Cathy, attempting the north side of Everest, stopped only a few hundred metres from the summit to try and help a dying American climber. The woman’s first words were ‘don’t leave me’. Yet Cathy eventually had to leave her to save her own life.

Now Cathy has captured the drama of her Everest climbs, her passion for the challenge of climbing mountains and her love for wild places in this story of her three attempts on the mountain. Cathy tries to answer the question of why, if climbing Everest can be so dangerous, people still want to do it.

She shares with the reader all the joys of her journey, a journey as much about self-discovery as about mountain climbing. This is a book of challenge, of adventure, of love and life and death. This is Everest, the world’s highest mountain, climbed ‘just for the love of it’.

“Your book beautifully illustrates the fact that its an inner journey as much as it is an outer one against natures harsh elements.“ Ziah Hayat, South Africa

Cathy with President Nelson Mandela and the Everest summit photo.

Dramatic photography

And it is not just about great writing. With 40 colour pictures and 72 black-and-white ones the visuals are stunning, too. Plus three maps, so you always know where you are.
 It was important to me that the book be as visually rich as possible. The landscapes we climb in are so extraordinary, so uniquely beautiful, and I wanted that vision to be available to the readers. 

“It was beautifully written and the photos are stunning – I couldn’t put it down! I also enjoyed the superb maps at the beginning.“ Anne Gardner, UK

“The pictures? WOW! Your descriptions of inner feelings. WOW! I climbed it with you.”
Hal A Huggins, Colorado Springs

Foreword by Sir Ranulph Fiennes

the world’s greatest living explorer.
It is one of the symptoms of this age of nerves and hysteria that we magnify everything, that our boasts are frantic and our scares pitiable, that we call a man who plays well at football a hero and that all successes are triumphs.”

I quoted this cutting from the Sketch newspaper, which followed Shackleton’s return from Antarctica in June 1909, in my book Mind over matter published in 1993 on my return from the world’s first unassisted crossing of the Antarctic continent.

Although written in 1909 it is astonishing how appropriate it still is today whenattitudes to human endeavour are measured largely in terms of success or failure, or the number of points put on the scoreboard, with very little in-between.

Just ‘playing the game’ or simply ‘having a go’ doesn’t seem to be a good enough reason to challenge oneself anymore, and increasingly in our technological age, the value, logic and reasoning behind feats of human endurance and courage are being questioned.

How refreshing therefore, when there are still so many challenges left in the world, and at a time when these very qualities need to be developed in our youth, to find ayoung modern explorer in Cathy O’Dowd pushing her limits, ‘just for the love of it’. A reason that seems as good as any, and probably better than most.

Everest yellow band and summit pyramid

To buy

• Only €30.00
• plus €11.00 for priority shipping within the EU.
• Please enquire for inter-continental shipping.
• Payment by cheque or bank transfer. Please contact us for details.
• For bulk ordersof more than 5 books, please contact us for discounts and shipping costs.

Everest from North side base camp