The Next Horizon

The first volume of Chris Bonington’s memoirs, I Chose to Climb, was published in 1966 and told of his initiation into mountaineering, from schoolboy beginnings, culminating in the British ascent of the North Face of the Eiger and his decision to turn professional. The Next Horizon picks up where that volume left off and relates his subsequent adventures as a mountaineer, photographer, journalist and expedition leader. The book opens with a journey to Chile to climb the Central Tower of Paine in 1962 and it ends in the summer of 1972 with preparations for the autumn Everest expedition which in the event only just failed to put a British climber on top of the world’s highest mountain for the first time. Here we learn more of the charismatic generation of climbing personalities with whom he travelled as well as the development of Chris Bonington into the devoted family man and celebrity he is today.