A Fine Line: Searching for Balance Among Mountains

Summary

● Honestly portrays the highs and lows of a life dedicated to the outdoors

● Shares the author's development as an outspoken conservation advocate

● Story is rooted in the peaks of the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, and Pakistan

How do we reconcile our love of outdoor adventure with the inevitability of loss in high-risk sports? Still in his thirties, Graham Zimmerman has made first ascents from Alaska to Pakistan, and in 2020 he received the Piolet d'Or for his climb on Pakistan's Link Sar. A sponsored athlete who is sought out as a climbing partner, Zimmerman knows that he must find a balance between his ambitions as an alpinist and his social responsibilities.

His generation has faced devastating grief in the mountains, and his cohort has witnessed firsthand the effects of climate change in the form of disappearing glaciers and increasingly erratic weather. Zimmerman writes of the exhilaration he feels while climbing but also the painful realization that summiting at all costs is an outdated model. As A Fine Line traces Graham's journey, mountain lovers everywhere will see themselves in this coming-of-age story of adventure and personal reckoning.