The Next Everest: Surviving the Mountain’s Deadliest Day and Finding the Resilience To Climb Again

In 2015, a severe earthquake ended motivational speaker and author Davidson’s (The Ledge) attempt to climb Mt. Everest, just several thousand feet below the summit. Davidson worried that his three-decade-long quest to summit Mt. Everest was over; he felt he was too old to muster the necessary financial resources, stamina, and strength. But Davidson dedicated himself in his mid-50s to almost a year of strenuous training for another month-long ordeal to summit Everest in 2017, demonstrating the resilience that he preaches to his audiences. The author vividly describes the aftermath of the April 2015 Nepal earthquake and the resulting avalanches on Everest’s slopes. Fans of climbing memoirs will appreciate Davidson’s recollections of his trek two years later, especially as he and his team reached Lhotse Face. In between recalling the thrills and terrors of climbing a glacier, the author includes letters from his wife and sons, which offered encouragement and inspired him to keep going.