Snowlines - by Simon Akam (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

"A whole century of the Alps--war, ambition, exploration--found inside a single race. Simon Akam has written in this book the truest account of ski mountaineering I have read."--Kílian Jornet, mountain athlete

"A fascinating account that reads like a classic wilderness thriller."--Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher series

A sweeping history of ski mountaineering and the author's quest to complete its most challenging race: the Patrouille des Glaciers in the Alps

God of skis, protect us.

Simon Akam fell in love with ski mountaineering as a teenager and was happiest above the snowline--until a brush with disaster in the Caucasus mountains sent him into a prolonged mental collapse. The only way to regain control of his anxious, spiraling mind, he decided, was to return to the mountains and, this time, to master them. His destination was the most famous ski traverse in the world and the birthplace of his sport: the Haute Route, stretching for 60 breathtaking miles through glaciers and valleys, flanked by the tallest peaks of the Alps. He would unearth its history and learn to ski its length, unguided, in preparation for one of the most difficult ski mountaineering races in the world: the Patrouille des Glaciers.

In this extraordinary pairing of history and firsthand experience, Akam brings the sport and its pioneers alive. Popularized by Arctic explorers, skiing took hold of Europe at the dawn of the twentieth century as mountaineers who had conquered peaks in summer began strapping on skis to claim them in winter. Alpine resorts opened their first lifts and groomed runs--the beginning of industrial ski tourism as we know it--and began hosting ski races, originally intended as a training exercise for the wild slopes. We see prisoners of war cajoled into ski recreation in neutral Switzerland by Arnold Lunn, father of the slalom; the global adventures of the travel writer Ella Maillart, one of the first women to ski the Haute Route; and the astonishing velocity of Benjamin Védrines as he demolishes the traverse's speed record in 2023.

Through grueling training in some of the most beautiful landscapes in the world, Akam seeks command of a treacherous sport and a precarious mind. At turns triumphant and tragic, Snowlines is a journey of exhilaration, exuberance and disaster.

Review Quotes

Praise for Snowlines:

"A history and memoir of ski mountaineering, or skimo . . . This is not a typical feel-good sports book: Death, threats of avalanche, and climate change's effect on snowfall and glacier integrity haunt its pages."--Kirkus Reviews

"A whole century of the Alps--war, ambition, exploration--found inside a single race. Simon Akam has written in this book the truest account of ski mountaineering I have read."--Kílian Jornet, mountain athlete

"A fascinating account that reads like a classic wilderness thriller, full of depth and history. I knew nothing about the subject but ended up entranced."--Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher series

"A fascinating and elegantly written book about a very specific alpine sport that, however, broadens out to encompass moments and observations that are universal and profound."--William Boyd, author of Cold Sunset

"Simon Akam delivers a book that matches deep historical research with an honest personal reckoning. By tracking the roots of the sport alongside his own grueling physical and mental journey toward mastery, Akam captures the exact paradox of ski mountaineering--that the mountains demand everything of us, yet offer the purest path to self-discovery in return. It's an authentic, exhaustively researched tribute to a culture built on grit, history, and the relentless pursuit of the line. A must read for any backcountry skier."--Cody Townsend, ski mountaineer

"A compelling exploration of fear, ambition and the urge to venture into difficult places. Akam weaves personal adventure with the extraordinary history of the Alps, asking what draws us to the mountains and what we discover there."--Levinson Wood, explorer and author of The Great Tree Story

"Part history, part reckoning. Akam moves between a century of Alpine ambition and the cold reality of a single brutal race, and finds in both the same unanswerable pull toward difficult places. Snowlines is a clear-eyed, gripping account of what the mountains ask of us, and what we're willing to give them."--Conrad Anker, alpinist

"An incredible book that combines thrilling adventure, physical endurance and self-discovery. Snowlines functions as a history of ski mountaineering but also as personal quest: a triumph over one of the world's most extreme races--and an act of intense self-mastery."--Cal Flyn, author of The Savage Landscape and Islands of Abandonment

Praise for The Changing of the Guard:

"[An] excellent and valuable book."--The Guardian

"A scathing account of the British Army in the years after 9/11 . . . full of forensic detail--and delicious gossip."--The Spectator

"Simon Akam has written a perceptive, challenging and passionate book that looks at modern soldiering. In doing so, Akam provides an invaluable look at how the British Army works--and how the changing world in the 21st century is asking new and complex questions for soldiers and military strategy alike."--Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads

About the Author

Simon Akam is a British magazine journalist and author. His writing has appeared in publications including the New Yorker, the London Review of Books, Outside, the New York Times, GQ and Vanity Fair. He is the author of The Changing of the Guard: The British Army Since 9/11, winner of the Templer First Book Prize and a Times Literary Supplement book of the year. He lives in London.