These tales range from the author's first mountain hike as a young man in his native Austria and his increasingly extreme climbs in the Alps to expeditions and adventures on all continents, where survival was sometimes only a matter of luck.One chapter describes his first expedition to the Karakoram, in 1961, another the third ascent of the perilous 8514m-high Lhotse in the Himalayas, in 1979. The book includes the gripping story of the Austrian expedition to the South Pole, in 1985/86, when their ship Southern Quest sank, crushed by pack-ice, and the crew only just managed to escape on an ice-floe.Excellent, sometimes spectacular photos bring to life this vivid account of daring adventures in a natural world of breathtaking splendour.