Edge of Never is World Famous!
Okay, so that’s a bit of an overstatement. Or perhaps it’s just preliminary. The truth is, in our first real week in operation, this site has seen visitors from India to New Zealand, France to Finland, and lot of folks from The Netherlands. I don’t know why or how, but I’m so glad you’ve all joined me, if only for 2:37 minutes (your average visit — I’m hooked on Google Analytics, if you can’t tell) at The Edge of Never. It started off a bit lonely around here, but lately I’ve been thrilled to meet so many kindred spirits. I’ve begun email correspondences with every person who’s bought a book from my site, a practice I plan to continue. Depending on your perspective, you may either view that as a promise or a threat.
Several of you have asked about the progress on the movie version of the book. While I wish I could say that we are enjoying faceshots of pure money-love, the fact is that the current economic slide has temporarily buried our funding prospects. Yet we’re out there with the beacon and probe and shovel, digging hard for any passionate investors who are still sucking air. Meanwhile, check out the teaser we’ve posted on the MOVIE page. More to come, we promise. Sooner or later even the most massive slides will melt away…
I’m a transplanted American who has been living and skiing in the Alps for the past 25 years. After reading an excerpt in Powder, I had to read the whole book. It just arrived yesterday. I didn’t go to sleep last night until midnight. I couldn’t put the book down! It’s one of the most haunting and powerful stories of ski mountaineering I’ve ever read!
I was just learning to ski when Blizzards of Aaahs was released. Over the intervening years I’ve read a few articles about how Kye was following in his dad’s footsteps. Although I’ll never ski at these guy’s level, somehow the whole story was very moving. Ten years ago I met Anselme Baud in Antarctica. Maybe these factors give “Edge of Never” special meaning for me.
I’m really looking forward to seeing the film!
Here I sit at midnight on a Thursday, writing from Denver. Tomorrow morning, early, I have to be at my desk job in corporate America… I’ve been exhausted since 7PM with the busy week I’ve just had, but no way was I going to sleep until I finished “The Edge of Never.” Then after I finished the book, I felt compelled to write a note to you, Bill.
I’m 28 years old. I can’t remember the last time I’ve read a book for pleasure. My personal history with skiing started on a small hill in New Jersey, skiing on rental everything… Then I “really” learned to ski playing catch-up with some friends at Heavenly Resort when I was 24 years old. I got in over my head at times, and broke my pelvis not too long into my 2nd season… took a lovely helicopter to Reno-Tahoe Hospital. I guess you could say the mountain taught me that there are consequences for my actions? But I was fortunate enough to heal.
This year, my personal goal is to learn as much as I can about snow conditions and achieve 40 days on the slopes – a respectable number, I think, for someone who spends 55 hours a week spreadsheet-jockeying. When I sit at work doing a job that is so anti-me, my personality, and my heart, all I can do to justify it is tell myself “it pays for me to ski.”
But it’s not about the number of times I ski. It’s about that feeling you wrote about in the book – when I’m up there, everything is clear for a moment in a life otherwise full of jumbled chaos, artificial deadlines, performance reviews… I like to sort out chaos by picking the best line, having my deadline be dictated by the sun, and review performance based on the last turns. I’m drawn to the mountains by an invisible force I never knew existed in me until this “late” in life.
This book made me feel sane for wanting to just drop it all to enjoy the sport I love. But, it also made me feel sane for sacrificing, at least a portion of it, for family. Thank you for writing it.
I also want to add, candidly, it sucked that your movie got put on hold, but you have had a while to think about it. I think now the conditions are better – make it the way it was meant to be, and take your time. I look forward to its release.
Thanks again for writing this, and good luck with the movie.