The Third Pole is an elegy of extremes, a white-knuckle tale of obsession and survival. From the archives of London's Royal Geographical Society to a tent battered by howling winds in the Death Zone, Mark Synnott puts it all on the line in his quest to solve Mount Everest's most enduring mystery. - Susan Casey, author of The Wave and Voices in the OceanA hundred-year-old detective story with a new twist. A high-altitude adventure. The best Everest book I've read since Into Thin Air . Synnott's climbing skills take you places few will ever dare to tread, but it's his writing that will keep you turning pages well past bedtime. - Mark Adams, author of Tip of the Iceberg and Turn Right at Machu PicchuJoin Mark Synnott on a quest for an artifact that could change Everest mountaineering history. Part detective story, part high adventure, Synnott engages obsessed historians, dodges Chinese bureaucrats, and ultimately risks his life high on the mountain's north face.
As the tension rises, he discovers astounding strengths in his fellow climbers, tragic frailty, and an ineffable truth he never imagined. - Andy Hall, author of Denali s HowlAlmost seventy years after my father, Tenzing Norgay Sherpa, climbed the summit of Chomolungma with the British 1953 Expedition, Western narratives about Mount Everest continue to be haunted by the question whether it was Mallory and Irvine who had been the first to stand on the summit. Mark Synnott's The Third Pole pursues this mystery and brings us closer to closing this chapter of mountaineering history. I learned a lot from this book.Both a gripping adventure story and an engrossing historical mystery.The author and adventurer Mark Synnott skillfully describes early-twentieth-century exploration, then dives into a story about Everest that merges mystery, adventure, and history into a single tragic bundle . Synnott knows how to keep readers turning the pages, and they will speed their way to his mystery's resolution. - The New York TimesIf you're only going to read one Everest book this decade, make it The Third Pole .
A riveting adventure. - OutsideUncovers the dangerous obsession that tackling this behemoth holds today. - Newsweek.