Icefall ─ Adventures at the Wild Edges of Our Dangerous, Changing Planet

In May 2014, the mountaineer and geologist John All fell into a crevasse near Everest and took a series of videos as he struggled to climb out 70 feet of ice and snow with broken bones, internal bleeding and his face covered in blood. The videos of him went viral and appeared everywhere: CNN, all the networks, BBC News, Australian news and every website imaginable. NPR called him "a badass for science.”

Yet this story is only the latest of All’s adventures. He’s also won a footrace for his life with a feral hyena, stepped on a black mamba in the African bush, and scaled Everest, all in pursuit of his true passion: the future of climate. Icefall is more than a fascinating adventure story?it is a report from the extremes, which hold new lessons about the impact of climate change. It is about the collapsing Andean glaciers, the hidden jungles near Honduras, where native people have learned about surviving hurricanes, and the highest points on earth, where more scientific secrets lie. The result is a thrilling adventure memoir with profound lessons for how humans will adjust as our world continues to change under our feet.

John All is a professor of geology and geography at Western Kentucky University. For his research and travels, All has received grants from the National Science Foundation, USAID, the National Academy of Science, the EPA, the CDC and was awarded a Fulbright to study Nepalese resource management in 2009-10. He is executive director of the American Climber Science Program, an organization of citizen scientists who have the ability to climb the world's tallest peaks and use these expeditions to gather crucial data on the changing climate.

John Balzar is the author of ?Yukon Alone: The World’s Toughest Adventure Race,” named a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year. His magazine work has been collected in anthologies including, ?Wild Stories: The Best of Men’s Journal.” A veteran newspaper journalist, he was awarded the Scripps-Howard Ernie Pyle Prize for human interest storytelling. He has sailing across the Pacific, worked as a river Boatman in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge and holds NOAA Science Diver certification.