The Vast Unknown: 
America's First Ascent of Everest

The Vast Unknown is a harrowing, character-driven account of this momentous climb and its legendary team of inspiring and troubled climbers who suffered injuries, a near mutiny, and a death on the mountain. It is also an examination of the expedition’s profound sway over the American consciousness during a time when the country was searching for its identity. And it is an investigation of one of the expedition’s little-known outcomes: the selection of a team to plant a CIA surveillance device on a Himalayan peak, to spy into China, where nuclear missile testing was underway. 

In the midst of the Cold War, against the backdrop of the space race with the Soviet Union and the civil rights movement, a band of iconoclastic, independent-minded American mountaineers with poet beards and laserlike eyes set off for Mt. Everest, aiming to restore America’s confidence and hope. The British and the Swiss had summited, but the Soviets and the Chinese had not. The peak would become another proving ground in the battle for dominance between East and West. The Americans’ audacious plan included reaching the top from two directions, one of which would take them up the never-before scaled West Ridge, an unforgiving path of ice and rock that would test not just their physical endurance, but their very psychological soundness. All the while, they couldn’t know until they reached the top whether they would find a bust of Chairman Mao waiting for them. 

Click HERE to learn about lecture program for The Vast Unknown. 

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