The Kid Who Climbed Everest: The Incredible Story of a 23-Year-Old's Summit of Mt. Everest

I have just finished TKWCE and I am totally blown away. I have been a fan of Bear Grylls ever since I saw my first episode of Man vs. Wild and this book has elevated him greatly in my eyes. He is a man to be admired. Bear's storytelling style made the entire book sound as though it was his interior monologue from Man vs. Wild which made for a quick and entertaining read. As a military man myself as well as an amateur mountaineer, I had no trouble identifying with Bear and his team as he described the pain, fear, exhaustion, and sense of adventure intrinsic to an assault on Mt. Everest. I enjoyed the humor, humility, and introspection throughout the book. Obviously since Bear wrote this at age 23, it is not Into Thin Air as many previous reviewers have mentioned. However, I enjoyed it a great deal more than ITA as Krakauer had a MUCH different climb and was surrounded by a great deal more controversy than Bear Grylls. Additionally, I think that the editor should be roundly thrashed for merely spellchecking and submitting the manuscript to the publisher! For somebody new to mountaineering or in the lower age bracket, this is a great book to start you off into Mountain Literature. It is not the flowing epic of Into Thin Air by Krakauer, nor is it the intensity driven, nihilistic assault of Kiss or Kill by Twight. This book is very simply about "A Kid" with a young man's perspective and worldview talking about scaling Everest. Bear makes no secret of the fact that he is a church going man, true, so if that turns you off, this might not be the book for you. However, all would do well to remember that there are no atheists on battlefields,...or in deserts,...or across oceans,...and certainly not on mountaintops!

As a fan of Bear Grylls I ordered this book after having read Into Thin Air. I have to admitt I enjoyed this book much more. I found it to be much more personal with much less arrogance than Into Thin Air. Bear admitted his fear throughout his journey to the top of the world. I cheered as he stood at the summit of Everest! I highly recommend this book to younger readers. I found it much easier to read and formed a bond with the author after reading it.

At 23 Bear Grylls decided that he was going to seed and needed to do something so he and a buddy went off to Mt. Everest. He wrote a book about the experience and it left me alternately laughing and awed. First, forget what you think you know about mountain climbing. Getting to Everest is an experience in itself that requires close encounters with bathrooms that are really just huts with mountains of other people's poop on the floor, diarrhea (inevitable-- the locals are none too clean and unless you want to offend them by not eating or drinking with the them you will get a stomach bug and/or a severe respiratory infection) and air sickness which can kill you if you don't attend to it right away. And because there's no place to bathe you will stink and after awhile even the female yaks will avoid you. Vomiting plays a big role in attacking Everest. On the very first night getting acclimated Bear was serenaded by the sounds of his buddy chundering into his boots. It's not romantic and not a bit like the adventure movies. Still, Bear has a sense of humor and being 23 at the time he made the absolute grossness of it all incredibly funny. He starts out as a sweetly goofy kid (much "younger" than I was at that age)and gets more serious as he goes up the mountain. He has a couple of nearly deadly close encounters and life in the Death Zone of the mountain is not cute at all. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and was sorry to come to the last page.

I really enjoyed this book. I am a non-climber and I was able to follow the technical aspects of this book. Bear Grylls takes you onto the mountain with him- you experience the boredom of Base Camp and the day-to-day aspects of trek life, the fear of passing through the Icefall and going every higher on the mountain, the pure exhaustion and pain the body experiences when climbing at such high altitudes and the triumph of standing on top of the world. He allows the reader to see his fears, insecurities, hopes and dreams.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! I felt like I was on the mountain with Bear Grylls. I liked how he described life at Base Camp and the pure boredom and anticipation he felt waiting for his body to acclimate. He allows the reader to see his fears, insecurities, hopes and dreams. He shows you that he is a real person climbing this awesome mountain. A non-climber can follow the technical aspects of the book very easily.