Risking Adventure: Mountaineering Journeys Around the World

Allen H. Soroka is assistant law librarian at the University of British
Columbia Law Library and an avid sportsman.

Jim Haberl is a family man who has devoted his life thus far to scaling
towering and dangerous peaks rather than questing for financial
security. In Risking Adventure, he recounts some of his recent trips,
among them the Devil’s Thumb in Alaska, the South American High Andes,
and the Himalayas. Many striking photographs of his adventures grace the
book.

Mountain climbing is evidently a recreation of the upper classes; the
climbers are generally from North America and Western Europe, while the
porters are hired from among the impecunious native population. High
mountaineering is, above all, risk taking. In his introduction, Haberl
promises to explore the notion that risk and adventure are an essential
part of all of our lives. While his book offers vivid descriptions of
the death-defying obstacles he and his companions have surmounted in
their treks, it brings the reader no closer to an understanding of why
these high mountain adventures are the risks of choice.