
Alone on the Ice
The Greatest Survival Story in the History of Exploration
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Narrated by:
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Matthew Brenher
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By:
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David Roberts
About this listen
His two companions were dead, his food and supplies had vanished in a crevasse, and Douglas Mawson was still 100 miles from camp.
On January 17, 1913, alone and near starvation, Mawson, leader of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, was hauling a sledge to get back to base camp. The dogs were gone. Now Mawson himself plunged through a snow bridge, dangling over an abyss by the sledge harness. A line of poetry gave him the will to haul himself back to the surface.
Mawson was sometimes reduced to crawling, and one night he discovered that the soles of his feet had completely detached from the flesh beneath. On February 8, when he staggered back to base, his features unrecognizably skeletal, the first teammate to reach him blurted out, “Which one are you?”
This thrilling and almost unbelievable account establishes Mawson in his rightful place as one of the greatest polar explorers and expedition leaders.
©2013 David Roberts (P)2013 BlackstoneListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"Painting a realistic portrait of Aussie explorer Douglas Mawson and his arduous trek through some of the most treacherous icy Antarctic terrain, Roberts gives the reader a very close look at the huge risks and preparations of the nearly impossible feat…Harrowing, exciting and brutally real, Roberts provides a chilling backstory to polar explorer Mawson’s bold solitary survival tale." (Publishers Weekly)
"Mountaineer and prolific author Roberts returns with a vivid history of Australian explorer Douglas Mawson and his 1912 exploration of Antarctica…. Roberts creates a full portrait of Mawson and does justice to what famed mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary would later call 'the greatest survival story in the history of exploration.'" (Kirkus Reviews)
"Douglas Mawson is not as well-known as Amundsen, Scott, or Shackleton, but as this intense and thrilling epic shows, he deserves a place on the pedestal next to these other great explorers of the Antarctic…. This fast-moving account earns for Mawson and his team a well-deserved place of honor in the so-called heroic age of Antarctic exploration." (Booklist)
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- By Simone on 06-30-17
By: Carol Shaben
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Coming Back Alive
- The True Story of the Most Harrowing Search and Rescue Mission Ever Attempted on Alaska's High Seas
- By: Spike Walker
- Narrated by: Paul Heitsch
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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When the fishing vessel La Conte sinks suddenly at night in 100-mile-per-hour winds and record 90-foot seas during a savage storm in January 1998, her five crewmen are left to drift without a life raft in the freezing Alaskan waters and survive as best they can. One hundred fifty miles away, in Sitka, Alaska, an H-60 Jayhawk helicopter lifts off from America's most remote Coast Guard base in the hopes of tracking down an anonymous Mayday signal. A fisherman's worst nightmare has become a Coast Guard crew's desperate mission.
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Outstanding Story and Performance
- By Stephen Bowlby on 05-22-18
By: Spike Walker
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The Mountain of My Fear and Deborah
- Two Mountaineering Classics
- By: David Roberts, Jon Krakauer - foreword
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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The publication of The Mountain of My Fear in 1968 and Deborah in 1970 changed the face of the mountaineering narrative. Now these two classic expedition narratives by acclaimed writer David Roberts are together again in one volume for a new generation of readers.
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An honest look into why people climb mountains
- By Kyra Rhodes on 05-19-21
By: David Roberts, and others
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Labyrinth of Ice
- The Triumphant and Tragic Greely Polar Expedition
- By: Buddy Levy
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 13 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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In July 1881, Lt. A. W. Greely and his crew of 24 scientists and explorers were bound for the last region unmarked on global maps. Their goal: Farthest North. What would follow was one of the most extraordinary and terrible voyages ever made. Greely and his men confronted every possible challenge - vicious wolves, sub-zero temperatures, and months of total darkness - as they set about exploring one of the most remote, unrelenting environments on the planet. In May 1882, they broke the 300-year-old record, and returned to camp to eagerly await the resupply ship. Only nothing came.
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An incredible read
- By Lauren Olson on 12-06-19
By: Buddy Levy
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Buried in the Sky
- The Extraordinary Story of the Sherpa Climbers on K2's Deadliest Day
- By: Peter Zuckerman, Amanda Padoan
- Narrated by: David Doersch
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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When Edmund Hillary first conquered Mt. Everest, Sherpa Tenzing Norgay was at his side. Indeed, for as long as Westerners have been climbing the Himalaya, Sherpas have been the unsung heroes in the background. In August 2008, when eleven climbers lost their lives on K2, the world’s most dangerous peak, two Sherpas survived. They had emerged from poverty and political turmoil to become two of the most skillful mountaineers on earth. Based on unprecedented access and interviews, Buried in the Sky reveals their astonishing story for the first time.
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Sherpas, The True Unsung Heroes
- By Kathy in CA on 07-26-15
By: Peter Zuckerman, and others
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In the Kingdom of Ice
- The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette
- By: Hampton Sides
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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In the late nineteenth century, people were obsessed by one of the last unmapped areas of the globe: The North Pole. No one knew what existed beyond the fortress of ice rimming the northern oceans. On July 8, 1879, the USS Jeannette set sail from San Francisco to cheering crowds in the grip of "Arctic Fever." The ship sailed into uncharted seas, but soon was trapped in pack ice. Two years into the harrowing voyage, the hull was breached. Amid the rush of water and the shrieks of breaking wooden boards, the crew abandoned the ship.
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Superb tale that unravels at an iceburg's pace
- By Mel on 03-19-15
By: Hampton Sides
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Alone on the Wall
- By: Alex Honnold, David Roberts
- Narrated by: Andrew Eiden, Will Damron
- Length: 7 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Only a few years ago, Alex Honnold was little known beyond a small circle of hardcore climbers. Today, at the age of 30, he is probably the most famous adventure athlete in the world. In that short time, he has proven his expertise in many styles of climbing and has shattered speed records, pioneered routes, and won awards within each discipline. More spectacularly still, he has pushed the most extreme and dangerous form of climbing far beyond the limits of what anyone thought was possible.
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love climbing and Alex honnold, dislike this book
- By Jennifer on 12-04-15
By: Alex Honnold, and others
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Fatal Forecast
- An Incredible True Story of Disaster and Survival at Sea
- By: Michael Tougias
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 5 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Fatal Forecast chronicles a dramatic fight for survival aboard two small fishing boats that were ambushed by a horrific surprise storm just southeast of Cape Cod. Soon after the Fair Wind and the Sea Fever reached the fishing ground at Georges Bank, they were hit with hurricane-force winds and massive 90-foot waves that battered the boats for hours. The direction of the wind made it impossible to turn back.
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outstanding read...the story behind the story
- By James on 02-08-16
By: Michael Tougias
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The Last Viking
- The Life of Roald Amundsen
- By: Stephen R. Bown
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 12 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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The Last Viking unravels the life of the man who stands head and shoulders above all those who raced to map the last corners of the world. In 1900, the four great geographical mysteries - the Northwest Passage, the Northeast Passage, the South Pole, and the North Pole - remained blank spots on the globe. Within twenty years Roald Amundsen would claim all four prizes.
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Outstanding.
- By Leon Miller on 12-01-15
By: Stephen R. Bown
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The White Darkness
- By: David Grann
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 2 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Henry Worsley spent his life idolizing Ernest Shackleton, the 19th-century polar explorer who tried to become the first person to reach the South Pole and later sought to cross Antarctica on foot. Worsley felt an overpowering connection to those expeditions. In 2008, Worsley set out across Antarctica with two other descendants of Shackleton's crew, battling the freezing, desolate landscape and life-threatening physical exhaustion. He soon felt compelled to go back. In 2015, Worsley bid farewell to his family and embarked on his most perilous quest: to walk across Antarctica alone.
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Will Patton's narration
- By Carol on 01-18-19
By: David Grann
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Race for the South Pole
- The Expedition Diaries of Scott and Amundsen
- By: Roland Huntford
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 14 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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For the first time ever Roland Huntford presents each man's account of the race to the South Pole in their own words. In 1910, Robert Falcon Scott and Roald Amundsen set sail for Antarctica, each from his own starting point, and the epic race for the South Pole was on. 2010 marks the centenary of the last great race of terrestrial discovery. For the first time Scott's unedited diary entries run alongside those of Amundsen and Bjaaland, never before translated into English.
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Great account, might be better in hard copy
- By Error9312 on 05-24-22
By: Roland Huntford
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K2
- Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain
- By: Ed Viesturs, David Roberts
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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At 28,251 feet, the world's second-tallest mountain, K2 thrusts skyward out of the Karakoram Range of northern Pakistan. Climbers regard it as the ultimate achievement in mountaineering, with good reason. Four times as deadly as Everest, K2 has claimed the lives of seventy-seven climbers since 1954. In August 2008 eleven climbers died in a single thirty-six-hour period on K2–the worst single-event tragedy in the mountain's history and the second-worst in the long chronicle of mountaineering in the Himalaya and Karakoram ranges.
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Almost Makes You Want to Climb K2... Almost
- By JJ on 12-30-15
By: Ed Viesturs, and others
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No Shortcuts to the Top
- Climbing the World's 14 Highest Peaks
- By: Ed Viesturs, David Roberts
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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For 18 years, Ed Viesturs pursued climbing's holy grail: to stand atop the world's 14 8,000-meter peaks, without the aid of bottled oxygen. But No Shortcuts to the Top is as much about the man who would become the first American to achieve that goal as it is about his stunning quest. As Viesturs recounts the stories of his most harrowing climbs, he reveals a man torn between the flat, safe world he and his loved ones share and the majestic and deadly places where only he can go.
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Big Ego conquers Big Mountains
- By Cassi on 07-25-09
By: Ed Viesturs, and others
respect
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A miraculous story of survival
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Excellent story/overview of early Antarctic study
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Incredible historical novel!
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Read like a text book at times, still I found it interesting
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Alone on the Ice
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Great
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Narration needs closer editing.
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incredible survival story, with a long lead up
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Too long
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