In July 1967, seven young men - members of a twelve-man expedition - died on Mt. McKinley. Ten days passed with no rescue attempt, while more than half an expedition was stranded and dying at 20,000 feet during a vicious Arctic storm. The bodies were never recovered. And, for reasons that have remained cloudy, there was no proper official investigation of the catastrophe.This book begins as a classic tale of men against nature. Reckoning by lives lost, it was history's third-worst mountaineering disaster when it occurred but elements of finger pointing, incompetence and cover-up make this disaster unlike any other. James M. Tabor draws on previously untapped sources and he consults not only mountaineers but also experts. What results is the first full account of the tragedy that ended a golden age in mountaineering.