Awards

• Commended for Benjamin Franklin Award (Biography/Autobiography) 2022
• Commended for Benjamin Franklin Award (Memoir) 2022
• Winner of IBPA Ben Franklin Award 2022 (United States)
• Winner of National Outdoor Book Award 2022 (United States)

Overview

A life worth living is lived at the edges where it is wild At the beginning of his memoir Life Lived Wild, Adventures at the Edge of the Map, Rick Ridgeway tells us that if you add up all his many expeditions, he’s spent over five years of his life sleeping in tents: “And most of that in small tents pitched in the world’s most remote regions.” It’s not a boast so much as an explanation. Whether at elevation or raising a family back at sea level, those years taught him, he writes, “to distinguish matters of consequence from matters of inconsequence.” He leaves it to his readers, though, to do the final sort of which is which. Some of his travels made, and remain, news: the first American ascent of K2; the first direct coast-to-coast traverse of Borneo; the first crossing on foot of a 300-mile corner of Tibet so remote no outsider had ever seen it. Big as these trips were, Rick keeps an eye out for the quiet surprises, like the butterflies he encounters at 23,000 feet on K2 or the furtive silhouettes of wild-eared pheasants in Tibet. What really comes through best in Life Lived Wild, though, are his fellow travelers. There’s Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard, and Doug Tompkins, best known for cofounding The North Face but better remembered for his conservation throughout South America. Some companions don’t make the return journey. Rick treats them all with candor and straightforward tenderness. And through their commitments to protecting the wild places they shared, he discovers his own. A master storyteller, this long-awaited memoir is the book end to Ridgeway’s impressive list of publications, including Seven Summits (Grand Central Publishing, 1988), The Shadow of Kilmanjaro (Holt, 1999), and The Big Open (National Geographic, 2005).

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9781938340994

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Reviews

About Seven Summits: Ridgeway's fast-paced adventure provides gripping descriptions of the world's tallest peaks. We see the logistical nightmares of Antarctica's Mt. Vinson, the unpredictable weather of McKinley, and the extreme altitude of Everest's 8,848 meters. Ridgeway continues up Aconcagua, Elbrus, Kilimanjaro, and Kosciusko with lively accounts that capture the day-to-day operations of expedition life, and more intriguingly, the growing bond between two driven men. --Ben Tiffany, Amazon Book Review About The Shadow of Kilmanjaro: His tale is, according to The Boston Globe, a gripping account of how it feels to be charged by an incensed elephant and kept awake at night by the roaring of stalking lions. About Across the Big Open: Adventure writer Ridgeway (The Shadow of Kilimanjaro) crafts an urgent, poetic narrative as he guides readers across Tibet's barren and treacherous northern plateau in search of the calving grounds of the chiru, an endangered antelope. Along with his three companions-late nature photographer Galen Rowell, Conrad Anker, who wrote the foreword, and Jimmy Chin-the seasoned mountaineer traces the female chiru's 200-mile migration route. The bulk of the story focuses on the Chang Tang's natural splendor and the adverse conditions the group faced while lugging 200 pounds of food, water and photographic equipment on aluminum rickshaws at soaring altitudes. To conserve batteries, Ridgeway writes, everyone but Conrad turns off their headlamps. In the east a fingernail of moon glows through a reef of clouds. We are traveling at a compass bearing of 30 degrees, and I assume that Conrad, like me, is using the stars in the sky to maintain our course. But Ridgeway also offers a thoughtful regional history and an affecting description of the complex human struggle surrounding the rampant poaching of chiru and the illegal trade in their pelts (their fur is woven into shahtoosh, an ultrafine and precious wool). The group's mission is ultimately successful: the Chinese government plans to create a national preserve based on their discovery. The international effort to save the Tibetan antelope and the big open steppe it inhabits elevates the narrative beyond the usual extreme travel tour to an enthralling and hopeful height. -- Publishers Weekly

About Across the Big Open Adventure writer Ridgeway (The Shadow of Kilimanjaro) crafts an urgent, poetic narrative as he guides readers across Tibet's barren and treacherous northern plateau in search of the calving grounds of the chiru, an endangered antelope. Along with his three companions-late nature photographer Galen Rowell, Conrad Anker, who wrote the foreword, and Jimmy Chin-the seasoned mountaineer traces the female chiru's 200-mile migration route. The bulk of the story focuses on the Chang Tang's natural splendor and the adverse conditions the group faced while lugging 200 pounds of food, water and photographic equipment on aluminum rickshaws at soaring altitudes. To conserve batteries, Ridgeway writes, everyone but Conrad turns off their headlamps. In the east a fingernail of moon glows through a reef of clouds. We are traveling at a compass bearing of 30 degrees, and I assume that Conrad, like me, is using the stars in the sky to maintain our course. But Ridgeway also offers a thoughtful regional history and an affecting description of the complex human struggle surrounding the rampant poaching of chiru and the illegal trade in their pelts (their fur is woven into shahtoosh, an ultrafine and precious wool). The group's mission is ultimately successful: the Chinese government plans to create a national preserve based on their discovery. The international effort to save the Tibetan antelope and the big open steppe it inhabits elevates the narrative beyond the usual extreme travel tour to an enthralling and hopeful height. -- Publishers Weekly About The Shadow of Kilmanjaro His tale is, according to The Boston Globe, a gripping account of how it feels to be charged by an incensed elephant and kept awake at night by the roaring of stalking lions. About Seven Summits Ridgeway's fast-paced adventure provides gripping descriptions of the world's tallest peaks. We see the logistical nightmares of Antarctica's Mt. Vinson, the unpredictable weather of McKinley, and the extreme altitude of Everest's 8,848 meters. Ridgeway continues up Aconcagua, Elbrus, Kilimanjaro, and Kosciusko with lively accounts that capture the day-to-day operations of expedition life, and more intriguingly, the growing bond between two driven men. --Ben Tiffany, Amazon Book Review

Complemented by stunning photographs, Life Lived Wild is a high-octane adventurer's memoir that evinces deep respect for people and ecosystems. - Foreword Reviews

Author Information

By the time he was 30, Rick Ridgeway had gone on more adventures than most people do in an entire lifetime. Called “the real Indiana Jones” by Rolling Stone Magazine, Ridgeway doesn't shy away from unknown territory. In fact, he seeks it. Ridgeway is recognized as one of the world’s foremost mountaineers. He was part of the 1978 team that were the first Americans to summit K2, the world's second-highest mountain, and he has climbed new routes and explored little-known regions on six continents. Ridgeway is also an environmentalist, writer, photographer, filmmaker and businessman. For fifteen years beginning in 2005 he oversaw environmental affairs at the outdoor clothing company Patagonia. Before joining Patagonia, he was owner/president of Adventure Photo & Film, a leading stock photo and film agency. He has authored six books and dozens of magazine articles and produced or directed many documentary films. He was honored by National Geographic with their Lifetime Achievement in Adventure Award, and was awarded the Lowell Thomas Award by the Explorers’ Club. Ridgeway serves on the boards of Tompkins Conservation and the Turtle Conservancy. He lives in Ojai, California.

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