When John Dunlop gives Judy Scott a lift to Glencoe on his motorbike, both are surprised when a relationship develops. But for John all passions must be relegated to the demands of the big climb. The focus soon shifts to the Alps where he teams up with the American climber Jack McDonald. Their careful planning goes awry and a major first ascent bid turns into an intense struggle bringing disaster and tragedy. This is a fictional portrayal of the world of mountaineers doing the most demanding routes at a time when climbing was still emerging from its primitive inter-war and post war austerities, and climbs were still a stark struggle with the elements. The realities and tensions of big-time climbing, firmly focussed on the Alps and the Himalaya, are revealed with greater clarity through the medium of fiction. During the 1960s and 1970s, Dougal Haston was seen as Britain's leading mountaineer following climbs in Scotland and on the Eiger, Annapurna, Everest and Mount McKinley with Robin Smith, John Harlin, Don Whillans, Doug Scott, Chris Bonington and others. He wrote "Calculated Risk" shortly before his death in 1977, while skiing above Leysin, Switzreland, an accident strangely foretold in the book.