Below Another Sky: A Mountain Adventure in Search of a Lost Father

I had originally read the story of Rick and Asia's journey in Outside Magazine. I could not wait to pick up the book. I have to say, whether you are a fan of the outdoors or not, this is a book for everyone. It is a book about friendships, family, life and death. The playing field just happens to be in the Himalayan Range. Rick has done such a fantastic job of writing that you don't just read this book, you join them on their trek to find a father and friend.

What a wonderful story this is! Rick Ridgeway writes and reflects with maturity and humility of his initial climb up Minya Konka in China's Sichuan province, the loss of his friend Jonathan in an avalanche during the climb and then his return to the mountain a decade and a half later with Jonathan's now-grown up daughter, China. I read this entire book in two long sittings and as with all great books hated to see it come to an end. The narrative, which weaves together earlier climbs and adventures, growing up and taking risks, along with the trek back to Nepal, Tibet and China is a spiritual as well as a geographical journey. Ridgeway has learned much from his incredible life -- about things that are of consequence and things that are not. His wisdom and common decency, his kindness and his loyalty to friends and to memories, and they way in which he imparts this to his friend's surviving daughter is inspiring and touching. I'll read this book again sometime soon and I'll think about it for a long long time because although it is a story that begins with tragedy and death and concludes with a visit to the site of that tragedy, it is at the same time a superb hymn to a life lived full and well and true.

As a climber and lover of mountains, I have read many mountain adventure books. They provide an enjoyable vicarious pleasure, and occasionally even penetrate to a significant illumination of the mysteries of the human spirit that make the experience of hardship and danger in nature (be it mountains, desert, ocean, etc.) such a powerful lure for many. This book, while it had those elements, was something totally different.My wife lost her father when she was eight years old, also in the mountains. From there the stories diverge in many ways, but the central theme of trying to find, and restore into her life, the father who she never knew, made Asia the star of this book, and her gift in allowing such an intensely personal story to be shared by the world is simply extraordinary. From my own experience I felt I understood her quest and her reactions, and yet the literary grace of the book, along with the beautiful design of the trip itself, left me with a far better understanding of my own wife (and a whole lot of tears).This book is about the living, not the dead; and that is the real lesson at the end. Thank you Asia, and thank you Rick, for sharing it. It is a glorious gem.

This is the recounting of a trip Rick Ridgeway made with Asia Wright through the Himalayas enroute to searching for her father's grave. Her father was Jonathon Wright, who was killed in an avalanche on Minya Konka when she was an infant. Throughout the journey he tells her of her father's life as well as of his own past as a mountaineer and adventurer. This was a difficult book for me to get through, and it was some time before I could pick it up without my hands shaking. I didn't think it would have such an emotional impact on me, and I'm bemused to think that Jonathon can still affect people when he's been dead for twenty years. We knew Jonathon, and I remember vividly the shock of returning from a trip and receiving a telegram saying he'd been killed. Certainly we were familiar with death's capaciousness, but it was a classic case of, "Why him, of all people? Where's the meaning in this?" It's a curious experience to read a book twenty years later where someone asks those questions about the same person, but we've all known someone who died too soon. They're difficult questions and Ridgeway does as credible a job of the philosophical answers as anyone can, with his acceptance of life and death, and change. However, his denouement at the end, that we should live each day as if it were our only one, felt flat. We've heard it before and it's been boiled done to a kitchen plaque cliché that I've always found irritating when it's not further explained. I don't think I'd plan on spending my only day on earth wondering if the roof should be redone this year or next and booking dental cleanings, as I'm doing today. My grudge with the cliché is that it seems to imply that we should regret whatever it is we've been doing up to now, rather than accepting that some days are simply going to be filled with the mundane details of living. It also holds an inherent suggestion that we should seek pleasure. But the kind of pleasure that makes life worth living is an elusive phantom and comes only after we've sought experience. Pain or regret may also result, regardless of our intentions. We have to embrace the experience regardless of outcome; if it's pleasurable, it's a bonus and we've earned it. Jonathon tried to focus on the experience rather than the goal or glory at the end, and I think that's what was meant in the book, but perhaps each of us sees it differently. But Jonathon's effect on people was the result of more than what he did, it was the result of his personality, and Jonathon simply being Jonathon. We all affect the people we contact each day. Whether it's for good or ill is up to us. Partly because of his own innate goodness and partly because of his efforts, Jonathon had a positive effect on the people who know him. The lesson I would take from his life is that we could all have a similar impact if we made the effort to be nice - and I apologize for the lackluster word, but there it is - nice. The circumstances in which I first met him was o

Because the "Lost Father" in the title of this book was a close friend and had, and continues to have, an enormous impact on my life, I picked up Rick's book with anticipation and some trepidation as well. Any fears were groundless.Rick has woven a marvelous fabric of adventure intertwined with a young woman's courageous journey into unknown parts of the world to search for the answers to questions she has asked her entire life. He binds the story with the thread of his own soul searching and past adventures, described in a straightforward, heartful manner.This book touched me deeply. And also entertained me. Rick is a great story-teller, using simple, matter-of-fact language to describe hair-raising, and even life-threatening situations.This is a book for lovers of adventure, for those in the middle of their lives, taking time to look back as well as forward, for those with unanswered questions in their lives, and for anyone with a father - known or unknown.I highly recommend this book