Alpine Circus

This white-knuckle ride around the globe with an intrepid skier in search of the exhilarating and bizarre takes readers from the summit of Kilimanjaro to the Olympic ski jump at Lake Placid.

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Michael Finkel has spent more than a decade journeying across six continents in a quest to unearth the wonders and eccentricities of the world's snowy regions. These are his remarkable discoveries. In this collection of seventeen mesmerizing, often uproarious tales, Finkel ventures from the underside of an avalanche to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro - capturing the joys, the mishaps, and the magic of each trip with rare skill.From partnering with a gang of Kazak herdsmen in China to flying off an Olympic ski jump in Lake Placid, he tackles the dangerous and the bizarre with equal enthusiasm. And whether he is leaping out of a helicopter to make a first ever descent on a remote Alaskan peak or challenging the wretched conditions on the world's highest ski run at 17,130 feet in Brazil, Finkel captures the power and excitement of testing the limits of exploration.But Alpine Circus is more than a simple retelling of extreme exploits. Finkel also vividly describes what it is like to be alone beneath the Northern Lights and how it feels to be an Olympic torch-carrier; throughout he searches for more than thrills, revealing the parade of strange and dynamic people and places that he encounters along the journey.Part seat-of-the-pants adventure, part cultural investigation, and peppered throughout with humor and insight, Alpine Circus is a stirring and brilliant trip from one of the brightest new voices exploring the far reaches of the planet.