The Magicians Glass – Character and fate: Eight essays on climbing

‹How much risk is worth taking for so beautiful a prize?›

The Magician’s Glass by award-winning writer Ed Douglas is a collection of
eight recent essays on some of the biggest stories and best-known
personalities in the world of climbing.

In the title essay, he writes about failure on Annapurna III in 1981, one of
the boldest attempts in Himalayan mountaineering on one of the most beautiful
lines – a line that remains unclimbed to this day.

Douglas writes about bitter controversies, like that surrounding Ueli Steck’s
disputed solo ascent of of the south face of Annapurna, the fate of Toni Egger
on Cerro Torre in 1959 – when Cesare Maestri claimed the pair had made the
first ascent, and the rise and fall of Slovenian ace Tomaz Humar. There are
profiles of two stars of the 1980s: the much-loved German Kurt Albert, the
father of the ‹redpoint›, and the enigmatic rock star Patrick Edlinger, a
national hero in his native France who lost his way.

In Crazy Wisdom, Douglas offers fresh perspectives on the impact
mountaineering has on local communities and the role climbers play in the
developing world. The final essay explores the relationship between art and
alpinism as a way of understanding why it is that people climb mountains.