EVEREST, INC.

The rollicking, eye-opening history of the Western and Sherpa adventurers who invented and refined one of the unlikeliest industries on earth: guided climbing on Mount Everest.

Every spring, newspapers run variations on the same photograph: a conga line of climbers trudging toward the top of the world. Op-ed pages rehash rants about overcrowding, and magazines like the New Yorker publish tick-tock how-it-happened deep-dives of how things went wrong. Mount Everest has become a reality show of sorts, with a cast of characters that make us shake our heads. Everyone seems to be aware of the circus, but few know how we got here.

Everest, Inc., examines our obsession with the world's highest peak and unravels that knot, revealing why Texas oilman Dick Bass becoming the 170th or so person to summit the mountain in 1985 is a far more important milestone than Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay becoming the first to summit in 1953. It was this moment, when a wealthy charmer with zero ability to survive the mountain on his own made it to the peak, that kicked off the next forty wild years of triumph, tragedy, and absurdity on Everest. Unlike any Everest book to date, Everest, Inc. puts all the stories you've heard -and many you have not- into context, through the eyes of the people who witnessed the evolution first-hand. Through hundreds of interviews with mountain guides, clients, Sherpas, pundits, writers, Hollywood actors, pro climbers, and others, Cockrell brings the story of the guiding industry arms race to life, and with it the entire mountain, in its glory and calamity.

Though it has no shortage of Darwin Award-worthy, schadenfreude-eliciting tales, the book transcends cliché and presents an uplifting but overlooked counternarrative of Everest. It's the story of how, despite the growing disdain for those willing to buy their way to the top, an army of journeymen and women mountain guides have quietly become experts at making dreams come true for people around the world. Amidst the greed and narcissism is genuine soul searching among those willing to pay the ultimate price for transformation.

Will Cockrell has spent more than 15 years as a senior editor, writer, and consultant for national magazines including Men's Journal, Outside, Men's Fitness, and GQ. His writing has been awarded by the American Society of Magazine Editors, Professional Publishers Association UK, and the LA Press Club. A former outdoor guide, Cockrell has covered Everest throughout his career, and has visited Everest base camp in Nepal. He lives with his family in Los Angeles, California.