Near Death in the Desert: True Stories Of Disaster And Survival Edited by Cecil Kuhne

Regrettable to all who have enjoyed it, Cecil Kuhne concludes his marvelous travel-writing anthology series with the fourth entry, Near Death in the Desert. He again takes readers around the globe and back through time to vicariously experience adventures few have endured. In contrast to Near Death on the High Seas where the participants are surround by an abundance of water, in the desert the lack of it leads to problems since, as Kuhne points out in the preface, “the human body…can last only a few days without water” before organ failure sets in. Then “the end cannot be far away.”

Not surprisingly, most of the adventures occur in Africa. Michael Asher and his new wife Mariantonietta traveled across the Sahara. His language is evocative as he details the effects a thunderstorm they got caught in had on the landscape. “The black plain had become a blotch of blood-red, amber, orange and gold, overlaid in places by slicks of mud as smooth and creamy as milk chocolate.” Fellow travelers across the Sahara include William Langewiesche, whose story may require a handy, glass of water at the mention of 128-degree heat in Adrar; Justin Marozzi, who followed old slave routes across the Libyan portion; and Geoffrey Moorhouse, who spent six months there, dealing with illness and exhaustion that made him quite emotional.

Unlike the other books in the series where the adventurers were usually isolated, the local populace plays an important role in many of the journeys. In Niger, Peter Chilson arouses suspicion because “every stranger, every white person, is a suspect agent of the American CIA or the French Sûreté.” In the book’s earliest entry from 1847, Bayle St. John is assisted across the Libyan Desert with help of Bedawins. Robyn Davidson’s second entry in the book finds her in the Thar Desert of northwest India with the Rubari people. She only has her journal to channel her disgust at the societal inequity and moral corruption she witnessed.

Two entries reveal the wondrous landscape North America has to offer. John Wesley Poweell’s 1869 expedition of Colorado River began in Green River, Wyoming and ended in the Gulf of Mexico. Along the way, his journal documents his progress and catalogs the canyons. Graham Mackintosh, who had one of the more dangerous journeys of the collection, walked the coast of Baja California, traveling by land and sea. He dealt with the kindness of fishermen and the dangers of rattlesnakes and plant life.

In Robyn Davidson’s book Tracks, which is excerpted for the foreword, she states, “There is nothing so real as having to think about survival,” a statement apropos not only for these tales but the whole series. The chroniclers here don’t experience as many near-death moments and danger as in the other books, but that doesn’t make the adventures any less thrilling.

Near Death In The Arctic: True Stories Of Disaster And Survival Edited by Cecil Kuhne

Cecil Kuhne continues his Near Death anthology series with …In The Arctic, a collection of fascinating tales that finds adventurers and explorers traveling to the figurative ends of the Earth.

The book’s foreword is taken from 1992’s Polar Dream by Helen Thayer, the first woman to travel solo to the magnetic North Pole. The excerpt throws the reader right into the harsh elements as she and her dog get caught in a savage storm. Hours later when she can assess her situation, she finds the wind ripped her tent, absconded with days’ worth of food, and left her face and eyes bloodied.

Valerian Albanov’s advice that “One should not poke one’s nose into places where Nature does not want it” from the appropriately titled In the Land of White Death, his account of the three-month journey across the Siberian Arctic in 1913 or 1914 after being trapped for almost 18 months on the ice-locked Saint Anna, proves wise though none whose exploits are documented here took his advice.

The reason why is best explained by Lennard Bickell in Mawson’s Will about Douglas Mawson’s expedition of Antarctica, which he organized after declining Robert Falcon Scott’s offer in 1910. Bickell writes, “Succinctly, clearly, the frozen continent said This is no place for man! Yet because it erected such barriers, the continent was spiced with the temptations of discovery and challenge.” However, high rewards usually have high prices, and death is not just near but right upon Mawson’s group as Belgarve Ninnis plunges into a crevasse. Bickell’s description of the moment would be fitting in a horror novel:

“The fine snow choked his eyes, ears, and throat, and he did not hear his own smothered death cry. Down in cold blackness, 150 feet down, his falling body smashed into a projecting ledge of ironclad ice. With the shattered remains of his sledge, with the doomed dogs, Belgrave Ninnis plunged deeper and deeper into the abyss.”

The best aspect of …In The Arctic, as opposed to the other books in the series, is seeing history from multiple viewpoints and the connections between the men. In the race to the South Pole, Captain Roald Amundsen was the victor and rightly used it as the title of his book. On the Fram, which contributor Dr. Fridtjof Nansen used almost 20 years earlier attempting to reach the North Pole in 1893, Amundsen had planned to go to the North Pole in 1910 until he heard Frederick Cook and Robert Peary, whose account we get in The North Pole, had beaten him. Although some historians now dispute both claims, Amundsen changed course and headed south, beating Scott by 35 days. Amundsen left a note for him among supplies left behind.

Scott’s Antarctica expedition ended tragically as he and the members of his team who journeyed to the pole never returned. The excerpt from his journal made clear that they knew “the end cannot be far.” Apsley Cherry-Garrard was a part of Scott’s expedition, which was dubbed The Worst Journey in the World, and the search party that discovered their remains. Cherry-Garrard not only mentions the impact Amundsen had, but uses passages from South Pole.

Another member of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration is Ernest Shackleton. His attempt “to be the first to cross the south polar continent from sea to sea” ended with the Endurance breaking apart due to damage from ice. Shackleton and five people took a lifeboat to South Georgia Island for help for the remainder of the team. The ship’s captain, Frank Arthur Worsley, was one of the five. They describe different parts of the adventure.

The book is filled with other stories, none spookier then the intense isolation experienced by Admiral Richard E Byrd in 1934 who spent five months alone at the South Pole Advance Base meteorological station, and David Lewis in a selection that could have been in the …On The High Seas as he became the first to sail around Antarctica in 1972 on Ice Bird.

After reading these harrowing tales, I find myself in complete concurrence with editor Kuhne who states, “the globe’s apexes are best observed from the relative comfort of the pages related here.” Make sure to dress warm when you cuddle up with this one, as you may feel an inexplicable chill no matter what your surroundings.

Near Death In The Mountains edited By Cecil Kuhne

Editor Cecil Kuhne’s second entry in his Near Death true-adventure series is set In The Mountains. It presents excerpts from stories of climbers in different parts and altitudes around the globe risking life and limbs to follow their passions.

While the motivation behind the drive and desire of the men On The High Seas may not, and possibly could not, have been clearly clarified in their writing, at least the accomplishment of traveling from point A to point B by boat made some logical sense. The mountaineers really have nothing to offer for their rationale that equals the sailor. Maybe if they were trying to get over or through the mountain, but there’s no need to traverse up and back down it other than George Mallory’s famous quote about why he wanted to climb Mt. Everest: “Because it’s there.” Felice Benuzzi’s No Picnic on Mount Kenya exemplifies that sentiment. He and two fellow Italian soldiers escaped a British POW camp in which they were imprisoned for two years during WWII, made the climb, and then returned until the war ended.

Walter Bonatti may offer the best explanation from the contributors in The Mountains Of My Life when he writes about conquering the impossible. In 1955 he made attempts with others to climb France’s Aguille du Dru, which at the time was “the last, great unattainable legendary challenge of the Alps.” He was repeatedly turned away by the elements until his third try when he went solo, which would be tough enough, but he rejected the use of spits, a type of piton that was rising in popularity but which he saw as a form of cheating against traditional alpinism.

The drive to be the first, to be an historical figure in the field, must compel these men as well. What else would explain Maurice Herzog’s trade-off in June 1950 of being part of the first team to successfully reach a peak over 8,000 meters, the crest of Annapurna in the Himalayas, in exchange for the amputation of frostbitten toes and fingers “in the field, and without the use of an anesthetic.”

Injury and death are accepted aspects of the endeavor. Peter Potterfield’s vivid description from In The Zone of his 150-ft fall in Washington’s North Cascades in 1988 and the results of “several compound fractures which protruded grotesquely from his body” may have the reader squirming in his seat. Others aren’t as lucky and it can end in a moment’s notice. In David Roberts’ The Mountain Of My Fear, an account of his 1965 climb of Mount Huntington in Alaska, he had the misfortune to see his friend die. “Suddenly, Ed was flying backward through the air," he wrote. "I could see him fall, wordless, fifty feet free, then strike the steep ice below.” Yet, Roberts continued climbing and became a prolific chronicler of his adventures.

Art Davidson’s account of his group’s 1967 winter ascent of Alaska’s Mt. McKinley in Minus 148° is breathtaking, figuratively for the reader and literally for one of the participants. Many veteran climbers refused the offer of Davidson and his friend Shiro Nishimae because “chances of success were zero” and “the combination of cold, winter, wind, darkness, and altitude could be the harshest ever encountered.” By the second full day on Kahiltna Glacier, Jacques “Farine” Batkin fell to his death in a crevasse because rather than being filled in “the wind-driven snow had covered [it] with a crust that concealed [its] presence.” This event understandably fractured the party moving forward; some persevered, but their return to the camp was threatened. They stayed in a snow cave as they waited days to maker their descent, which led to dire declarations, such as “Pieces are coming off my bad ear!” Different members of the expedition kept diaries, allowing for a more complete version of the events for the reader.

Joe Simpson’s Touching The Void was very controversial in the climbing community because his partner, Simon Yates, cut their rope to save himself as a severely injured Simpson hung helplessly over a crevasse in the Peruvian Andes and could have pulled them both in. The excerpt takes place before that crucial point in their story, which was later made into a film.

Near Death In The Mountains is a gripping collection for those who climb up mountains and those who climb into comfortable chairs to read. It will change the perspective of the latter the next time they gaze upon a mountain, and no matter what the color, its majesty will be better appreciated.

Near Death On The High Seas edited by Cecil Kuhne

“…that sense of the full awfulness of the sea,” a line taken from Melville’s Moby Dick, is on full display in this anthology from Vintage Books. Contained within is a group of excerpts from sailing-disaster stories throughout the years, presenting a greatest hits collection of dangerous ocean tales complied by Cecil Kuhne, former whitewater rafting guide and author of nine books.

Near Death on the High Seas opens with Steven Callahan’s Adrift, a record of his being lost at sea for 76 days. It boggles the mind of a landlubber like myself on how to handle an ordeal like that. I can’t even fathom going to sleep alone on a boat as it continues sailing let alone waking up as Callahan did to “a deafening explosion” that leads to his being “thrown into the path of a rampaging river.”

Not that having someone by your side is a guarantee of safety. In Gordon Chaplin’s Dark Wind he and his girlfriend Susan sailed to the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean. Their journey was romantic in the beginning as they found paradise together. Unfortunately, they decided to stay in their boat rather than go ashore as a typhoon hit. They both ended up floating in the ocean, holding onto each other as large waves crashed down on them. One minute they seemed fine. Then, they were underwater and Susan drifted away into the darkness. Chaplin describes his helplessness to do anything about it: “...the next wave curled around me, wrapped me up, and did what they wanted with me.” It’s not clear what happened and likely he wasn’t fully aware himself even though his survivor’s guilt caused him to replay the events repeatedly.

The remainder of this review can be read at Blogcritics.