Life Lived Wild: Adventures at the Edge of the Map (by Rick Ridgeway)

Rick Ridgeway calculates that he’s spent over five years of his life sleeping in tents: “Small tents pitched in the world’s most remote regions.” Whether at elevation or raising a family at sea level, those years taught him, he writes, “to distinguish matters of consequence from matters of inconsequence.”

Some of his adventures made news: the first American ascent of K2; the first traverse of Borneo; the first crossing on foot of a corner of Tibet so remote no outsider had ever seen it. Big as these trips were, Rick kept an eye out for the quiet surprises, like the butterflies he encounters at 23,000 feet on K2 or the furtive silhouettes of eared pheasants running wildin Tibet.

What really comes alive in Life Lived Wild are his relationships with his fellow travelers, such as Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard, The North Face founder Doug Tompkins, and filmmaker Jimmy Chin. 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.