Lincoln Hall - Dead Lucky: Life After Death on Mt. Everest - Book Review

Having just finished the story of Ed Viesturs, I was on a Mountain Climbing book kick. I decided to read Lincoln Hall's Dead Luck: Life After Death on Mt. Everest. This is the story of how Lincoln was pronounced dead on the mountain and somehow managed to come to life and make it down the mountain.

Lincoln hall was an accomplished climber over the years and has been on many trips, but was left with one void and that was climbing Mount Everest.

Lincoln had an opportunity to climb Mount Everest as part of a team in 2006. His task was to document the climb of a 15 year old Australian who was going to be the youngest to climb the mountain by 3 months.

Lincoln wasn't even sure if he would be going because of the cost and sponsorship money. With only 2 months until the expedition Lincoln was called up and told he was going to Everest. Now he had two months to get ready for a mountain that would take at least 6 months to prepare for.

So the adventure begins and off Lincoln goes to try to tackle his Mount Everest.

The coolest thing about this book is the descriptions along the way. From the hotels in town to the trek out to base camp. Even Lincoln's descriptions of the mountain and the steps along to climbing to the peak. I think that having been an accomplished writer helps make the readers feel like they are there every step of the way.

From the missed opportunity at the start thinking he was going to pack it up and go home through to his rescue going down the mountain, this is an amazing story of how Hall survived out in the open above 28,000ft over night and made his way back facing hallucinations and other things on his way back to base camp.

I'm not going to tell you the whole story and get into too many of the details only because it's all a part of reading the story and following through this epic journey.

There are certainly controversies in the story and I think even Lincoln has tried to work out the truth to some of those. All I will say is that it certainly had to be a struggle making his way back to life and dealing with the healing.

I don't believe that I will ever attempt to climb Mount Everest, but you never know and if some crazy opportunity came up I can't say I would turn it down.

This is a fantastic book and well worth the read. As much as I love hiking and going out on adventures, I like to read these stories to remind myself that we are still human and things can go wrong.

I also like the descriptions of what gear he uses at the different elevations. This is something that I'm always interested in reading about.