I have mentioned before the exploits of the extraordinary climber/mountaineer, Pat Falvey. He reassessed his life in Cork, having come from being a very wealthy man to one who had nothing, to achieve different objectives. He did so by tackling seemingly impossible challenges in remoter parts of the planet, and became one of a small band of hardies - numbering fewer than 40 - who have climbed the seven highest peaks in the world.
His odyssey led him to many strange places, and now his book - Reach for the Sky - has reached the bookshelves. Published by Collins Press in Cork, it tells a fascinating story. But judge for yourselves. Doing what Falvey has done does not come easy - there are triumphs and tragedies.
I refer now to one of the tragedies. Falvey has recounted the final hours of a fellow traveller, a fellow adventurer, on Everest. His name was Karl Henize, and it is a graphic account. The climber was suffering from an affliction known only too well to those who pit themselves against stark conditions at such altitudes - pulmonary oedema:
"At 1 a.m. on October 5th, 1993, Karl died with one last searing heave of his fluid-filled lungs. Tears ran down my face as I stood there, looking at his lifeless body. I quietly prayed, and my mind returned to just days earlier when Karl and I had discussed the impossibility of staging a hasty rescue above 20,000 feet.
"In hindsight, it was as if he had received some portent of his fate.
"In a solemn and surreal ceremony, we buried Karl in the ice of the east Rongbuk Glacier, after a full video-taped examination of the body by our team doctor who had arrived from base camp as part of the rescue response. Extracts from the Bible were read at the icy tomb on which we placed Karl's NASA cap. I walked dejectedly away - leaving a friend and a teammate in the lap of Chomolungma."
Henize had been involved in the NASA space programme and was an astronaut on board the space shuttle. Con Collins of Collins Press, a mountaineering companion of Falvey's, says that Henize, with a scientific background, had been drawn to Everest when he flew over it in the shuttle. The affinity would lead to his doom. This describes just a small fragment of the story Falvey has to tell.
On reading some of the initial proofs, I thought this was more than just a book about mountaineering - I was right.