Meetings on the Edge : A High-level Escape from Office Routine

A captivating travel memoir by a former BBC journalist who abandoned a ten-year career to follow her dream of becoming a mountaineer. This is the story of a solitary quest, unexpected encounters with fascinating people, and the profound lessons learned in nature's classroom against a background of adventure, discovery and considerable personal risk.

From Alaska to the Pacific North West, the Himalaya to New Zealand's Southern Alps, the author weaves together extraordinary tales around her central adventure of traversing the French and Spanish Pyrenees alone. Along the way, she summits Denali, North America's highest peak, as her expedition dwindles from nine climbers to just four due to life-threatening illness and mishap. She navigates a colourful relationship with Nepal's most famous civilian film star just two weeks after the royal massacre, and encounters everything from an all-too-aroused flasher far off the beaten track to moments of unexpected grace in remote wilderness.

But it's after a chance meeting with a wise Maori man and a solitary encounter with a 2000-year-old Kauri tree in an ancient forest that the author experiences a life-changing epiphany: that a restless, goal-driven existence is not the most fulfilling path. The book concludes in the foothills of the Pyrenees, where the freedom she has discovered stands in marked contrast to the security-conscious world of electric gates and hedgerows—a community in fear of the very open spaces that had broadened her horizons.