Table Of ContentAdvance Praise for
TO THE LAST BREATH
“Francis Slakey’s exciting, perilous adventures from El cap to the Indian
Ocean are at first just a stunt—the cool, calculated goal of a hardcore
scientist. But when the acts of grace and heroism of others open his heart.
To the Last Breath becomes a tribute to the remarkable connectedness that
binds the world and its people together.”
—NORMAN OLLESTAD, New York Times bestselling author of Crazy for the
storm
“To the Last Breath is, in a word, breathtaking. Dr. Slakey takes you with
him as he blasts through blizzards and dangles by frayed lines to get to the
top of the highest mountains. He also adds the science of surfing to your
body of knowledge. I left his transformation as if it were my own: from
restrained physics professor who gives his students equations instead of
himself, to humane, caring soul willing to love and to lose and to truly enter
the world. Slakey’s story has the adrenaline of high adventure, but more
important, it delivers the thrill of self-discovery.”.
—LUCINDA FRANKS, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and author of My Father’s
Secret War
A JOURNEY TO THE MOST EXTREME POINTS ON EARTH AND DEEP
INSIDE THE HUMAN SPIRIT
B
efore Georgetown physics professor Francis Slakey decided to climb the
highest mountain on every continent and surf every ocean, he had shut
himself off from other people. His lectures were mechanical; his
relationships were little more than ways to fill the evenings. But as his
journey veered dangerously off course, everything about him began to
change.
A gripping adventure of the body and mind, To the Last Breath depicts
the quest that leads Slakey around the globe, almost takes his life,
challenges his fiercely held beliefs, and opens his heart. The scientist in
Slakey explores the history of Robert Falcon Scott’s doomed Antarctica
expedition, the technology of climbing, and the geophysics of waves. But
it is the challenges he endures and the people he encounters—a Lama
who gives him a mysterious amulet, a life-or-death choice atop Everest, an
ambush at gunpoint in Indonesia, a head-on collision in the high desert—
that culminate in a moving lesson about what it means to be human.
FRANCIS SLAKEY is the Upjohn Lecturer on Physics and Public Policy at
Georgetown University and an Associate Director of Public Affairs at the
American Physical Society, where his focus is the intersection of science
and society. The founder and co-director of the Program on Science in the
Public Interest, a Lemelson Associate of the Smithsonian Institution, and
a MacArthur Scholar, Dr. Slakey has been featured by NPR, National
Geographic, and others, and his writing has appeared in The Washington
Post, The New York Times, Slate, and Scientific American.
VISIT HIM AT WWW.TOTHELASTBREATH.COM
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Copyright © 2012 by Francis Slakey
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint articles from the following publications: “New
‘green’ pyre to cool planet while burning India’s dead” by Tripti Lahiri, Agence France-Presse “U.S. Links
Indonesian Troops to Deaths of 2 Americans” by Raymond Bonner, The New York Times “Indonesia Military
Allegedly Talked of Targeting Mine” by Ellen Nakashima and Alan Sipress, The Washington Post Certain names
and identifying characteristics have been changed.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For
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Designed by Joy O’Meara
Maps by Paul Pugliese
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Slakey, Francis.
To the last breath / Francis Slakey.
p. cm.
1. Slakey, Francis. 2. Mountaineers—United States—Biography. I. Title.
GV199.92.S59A3 2012
796.522092—dc23 2011025391
ISBN 978-1-4391-9895-7
ISBN 978-1-43919897-1 (ebook)
CONTENTS
Cast of Characters
Chapter 1
Beyond the Sky
Chapter 2
Be Strong
Chapter 3
Three Pillars
Chapter 4
The Amulet
Chapter 5
Cold and Broken
Chapter 6
The Ambush
Chapter 7
Shared Purpose
Chapter 8
Interconnected
Chapter 9
A Map Comes Alive
Chapter 10
Description:A journey to the most extreme points on Earth and deep inside the human spirit Before Georgetown physics professor Francis Slakey set out to climb the highest mountain on every continent and surf every ocean, he had shut himself off from other people. His lectures were mechanical; his relat
