Lydia Bradey: Going Up is Easy

'As the first woman to climb Everest without oxygen, Lydia made history, but her team abandoned her, betrayed her, and defamed her. Her Everest story is strange and bittersweet, but the inner strength that propelled her up that mountain ultimately helped her rise above petty scandal. Her feat is now recognised and admired as an important 'first' on the world's highest summit.' - Greg Child, author of Over the Edge. In 1988, Lydia Bradey became the first woman to climb Mount Everest without supplementary oxygen. She made the ascent alone - her team members having abandoned her on the mountain - and to date she is the only New Zealander to have made an oxygen-free ascent. Her climb was a truly remarkable achievement but also an internationally controversial one. Going Up is Easy details for the first time the events surrounding Bradey's historic feat, as well as her many hair-raising expeditions through Alaska, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, India, China, Europe, and New Zealand. In the spirit of John Krakauer's Into Thin Air or Joe Simpson's Touching the Void, Going Up is Easy celebrates a life lived on the edge. Through her stories, we encounter a woman propelled by curiosity and passion to become one of the greatest female high-altitude adventurers of recent times. Co-written with acclaimed novelist Laurence Fearnley, a long-time friend of Bradey, and stunningly illustrated throughout, Going Up is Easy is a life story by turns dramatic, tender, funny, frank and inspiring.