Meetings on the Edge

A High Level Escape from Office Routine

Meetings On The Edge is a travel memoir by Mags MacKean, a once-frustrated
journalist for the BBC, who took the plunge and abandoned a ten-year career to
follow her dream to become a mountaineer. The book explores the impact of a
solitary journey as well as unexpected encounters with some fascinating people
along the way. The different natural environments she encounters mirror the
demands of an evolving quest. The many lessons of nature`s classroom are set
against a background of adventure, discovery and undertaken with considerable
personal risk. Like all quests, the incidental insights and surprising events
challenge the romantic idea of adventure.

Stories from Alaska, the Pacific North-West, the Himalaya and New Zealand`s
Southern Alps are interwoven into the central adventure of traversing the
French and Spanish Pyrenees alone. Tales to highlight include encountering a
naked and all too aroused flasher far off the beaten track, a colourful
relationship with Nepal`s most famous civilian, a film star, two weeks after
the massacre of the royal family, and summiting Denali, North America`s
highest peak, while the expedition dwindled from 9 to just 4 due to life-
threatening illness and mishap. But it was after a chance meeting with a wise
Maori man and a solitary encounter with a 2000-year-old Kauri tree in an
ancient forest, that the author experiences an epiphany: that a restless,
goal-driven life is not the most fulfilling.