Above an eerie realm of endless snow covered spires . . . Each step appears increasingly impossible. Disorientation and fatigue make the climber's head swim and the body threaten to collapse. For Greg Child it happened at 8,000 meters on an all-out alpine-style climb marked by tragic loss.In this spellbinding chronicle, Greg Child takes us step by nerve-shattering step through the world's most remote regions - as he cracks the ''death zone'' above 26,000 feet, and attacks ''by fair means'' the world's most perilous pinnacles.From Child's assault on Gasherbrum IV to a season of tragedy and carnage on K2, ''Thin Air'' is more than one man's story - it is an intimate portrait of mountains and those who climb them: what bonds clients together and what separates them, and what the mountains teach us all about life -- and death . . .