The Boldest Dream, by Rick Ridgeway. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979. 170 pages. Cloth $10.95.

In terms of climbing achievement, the American Bicentennial Everest Expedition was very unimpressive. True, two of its members reached the summit of the world’s highest mountain on an extremely windy day and survived to talk about it. Yet, the ABEE used bottled oxygen and 25-year- old logistical tactics that had, on numerous times, been proven successful. Thus, this story is not an example of boldness as the title implies but only another account of a march up a big mountain.

I was very skeptical when I began reading this book. In fact, I had a difficult time just getting past the horrible title. In spite of my skepticism however, I found that I was immediately caught up in a moving flashback of Ridgeway, Roach and Bruyntjes climbing up to Camp VI to see if Chandler and Cormack survived the descent from the summit at night. During the first six pages I was totally absorbed by Ridgeway’s feelings of the experience: the claustrophobia of waking up from a nightmare in a small tent which is being battered around by the wind, the love for his “ace pal” Chandler, the dread of the possibility that he might be dead, the effort and frustrations of trying to think clearly at 26,000 feet and the insidious apathy which slowly eats away at a person at high altitude. These first few pages are perhaps the best in the book.

The subsequent chapters drag somewhat as they describe the preexpedition planning. At this point Ridgeway spices up the otherwise boring parts with his outstanding humor:

“In the reception room swarms of media people from newspapers were hobnobbing. … I spotted a good-looking young woman standing by herself and decided to do a little hobnobbing myself.

“Are you from a newspaper?” I asked.

“No, a magazine,” she said.

“Oh? Which one?”

“McCall’s."

“McCall’s? What interest do they have in Mount Everest?” I thought perhaps they were considering doing a piece on the two women on our team.

“Interest? Oh, none. I just come to these press conferences for the free booze.”

By then my drink had arrived, so I toasted her, saying she probably had the best reason of anyone for being there, (p. 30)

It was refreshing to read Ridgeway’s light-hearted prose. He isn’t deluded by the seriousness of it all; he realizes that climbing is, above all, a game used as a means to see some fantastic country. He wants to experience it all and I got the feeling that to him, getting cranked on chang with the Sherpas was as important as reaching the South Col. It’s not just the summit but it’s the total mountain experience that “fights the boredom.”

There were several good lessons to be learned from the book, especially for those of us who go on expeditions to big mountains. Following the evolution of what was originally planned as a small, semi-alpine style expedition into a 12 climber plus film crew zoo was didactic. If you want to climb a mountain and do your own thing, then don’t seek funds for your trip. The second lesson illustrated the realities of climbing and film making. Either you go to climb with maximum speed and minimum equipment or you go to make an exciting film. But never be fooled into thinking that it is possible to do both.

The film crew, then, was the source of a lot of interpersonal friction and Ridgeway deals with these and other conflicts with embarrassing honesty. All sides of the arguments are presented; yet it was difficult to have sympathy for the inane whining of some of the expedition’s members over the presence of the film crew which generously donated $50,000 to the expedition and promised an additional $50,000 if the footage made prime-time TV (it did).

Although The Boldest Dream will never be on the same shelf with Assault Against Everest, Conquest of Everest, Four Against Everest or other classics, Ridgeway’s prose makes for easy entertainment and will be enjoyed by both climbers and nonclimbers.

Michael Graber