Ocean deep, mountain high: Adventure books fascinating look at man’s limits | Columnists

For some strange reason, I love reading true adventure books, namely books about mountain climbing or deep-sea diving exploration.

My overriding question while reading such adventures is, “Why in the world would anyone want to do this?” And, of course, my mind drifts back to the answer given by George Mallory, the famous mountain climber, when asked why men climb mountains: “Because they are there.”

Years ago, I read the classic book, “Shadow Divers” by Robert Kurson. The cover informs: “The true adventure of two Americans who risked everything to solve one of the last mysteries of World War II.”

John Chatterton and Richie Kohler were deep-wreck divers who did it for sport and a profession. “In the fall of 1991, not even these courageous divers were prepared for what they found 230 feet below the surface in the frigid Atlantic waters sixty miles off the coast of New Jersey … a World War II German U-boat, its ruined interior a macabre wasteland of twisted metal, tangled wires, and human bones — all buried under decades of accumulated sediment.” (Quoted from the book flap.)

“Shadow Divers” is the story of how Chatterton and Kohler gathered an elite team of divers and embarked on a journey that lasted six years. There were no identifying marks visible on the submarine due to the way it laid on the ocean floor and no markings on the artifacts they found.

No historian or government expert had a clue as to which U-boat had been found, and most official records proved that there would not be a sunken U-boat at that location. The research done to identify the submarine was painstaking but fascinating.

Several divers lost their lives in the process of discovery, and many interesting facts of deep-sea diving and experiments with new equipment and techniques were fascinating.

Granted, reading this book was not as tension-inducing as the mountain-climbing books I have read. I think “Into Thin Air” by Jon Krakauer is my favorite “scare myself to death” book, and certainly a classic among mountain climbers.

It tells of the dangerous expedition in 1996 in which nine members from the combined teams died in their attempt to reach the summit of Mount Everest. The book was later made into a breathtaking movie.

Another good book about that same climb concentrates on Scott Fischer who was one of the men who died. That book is titled “Mountain Madness.” Fisher was a charismatic American guide, and this book seeks to illuminate the power that mountains can exert over humans.

“High Exposure” was written by David Breashears, who was the director of the IMAX filming expedition responsible for “Everest.” He was part of the crew that went up the mountain to bring down some survivors of that icy 1996 calamity of Everest that had left so many people dead.

“Over the next several days, our expedition climbed up Everest, struggling with bitter cold and bitter truths and a deeply felt grief for our friends who would lie frozen in death forever.”

After that doomed 1996 expedition, Breashears’ crew went back up on the mountain almost immediately.

“Why did we stay on and ascend the mountain once more? On reflection, I think it was because I felt a strong kinship not only with the dead, but with the mountain itself. I hated seeing it stand in disarray, under scrutiny from the world’s media; I wanted redemption from the tragedy.”

Another good book on this subject is “Forever on the Mountain,” which is about climbing Alaska’s Mount McKinley, the highest peak in America. (Although Mount Everest is the tallest mountain at 29,028 feet, K2 is the second highest at 28,250 feet and is on the China-India border.)

Our local library has shelves and shelves of true adventure books, and some of the scariest books have no monsters in them. On second thought, Mother Nature can be a pretty scary monster … one that scares your pants off.

Nancy Carlson Dodd is a Fort Wayne resident and writer.