Before Aron Ralston cut his arm off in a Utah canyon, before Jon Krakauer survived the Death Zone on Everest, Jim Davidson began slogging up Mount Rainier on what he thought would be an ordinary weekend climb. He and his buddy Mike Price, both from Colorado, were visiting in 1992 to bag Liberty Ridge, one of the classic routes in North America. And they made it to the top just fine, safe and sound. What The Ledge (Ballantine, $26) recounts instead is the way down. Thats when most climbing accidents occurwhen youre tired, victorious, your guard lowered. Descending near the standard Emmons Glacier route, Davidson stepped onto a snow bridge over a crevasse. The span collapsed, and both men fell in. Everything outside the crevasse is extraneous to Davidsons self-rescue tale (co-authored by Kevin Vaughan, expanded from his 2008 Denver Post serial). What matters is inside, slotted within a frozen coffin, determining how to escape up 80 feet of sheer ice. The technical aspects of self-belay and dwindling ice screws will be more meaningful to climbers than lay readers, but the essence of The Ledge has broader resonance. Survival, whether in economic recession or glacial crevasse, depends on calmly contemplating the worst outcome, then acting despite your fears. Davidson admits to panic in the darkness, recovers, thinks of his family, then climbs up toward the light. BRIAN MILLER
Tue., Aug. 23, 7 p.m., 2011
