Forever on the Mountain: The Truth Behind One of Mountaineering's Most Controversial and Mysterious Disasters

In the summer of 1967, an Arctic hurricane trapped seven climbers, members of Joe Wilcox’s 12-man expedition, at 20,000’ on Mount McKinley. Ten days passed while the storm raged and, despite the availability of resources, no rescue was mounted and all seven men died; their bodies never recovered. This was history’s third-worst mountaineering disaster and, surprisingly, there was no proper official investigation of the catastrophe. It has remained one of the most controversial, bitterly contested, and mysterious tragedies in mountaineering history. Through face-to-face interviews, unpublished correspondence and diaries, and government documents, Tabor skillfully expands beyond the conflicting, direct-account, books of both Howard Snyder and Wilcox. This is the first full account of this complex story which marked the end of the golden age of pioneer climbing on McKinley. This is an important addition to the other literature of this expedition written by Howard Snyder, Joe Wicox, Jeffrey Babcock and Andy Hall. This is the third, of five, books to cover the Wilcox-Snyder story.

Winner of the 2007 Banff Mountain Book Festival Grand Prize, winner 2007 National Outdoor Book Award in the History/Biography category and shortlisted for the 2007 Boardman-Tasker Award.