Dr. Francis Slakey - To the Last Breath: A Memoir of Going to Extremes

Advance Praise for

TO THE LAST BREATH

Francis Slakeys exciting, perilous adventures from El cap to the Indian Ocean are at first just a stuntthe 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. Slakeys 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 Fathers 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 Scotts doomed Antarctica expedition, the technology of climbing, and the geophysics of waves. But it is the challenges he endures and the people he encountersa 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 desertthat culminate in a moving lesson about what it means to be human.

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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 SIMON & SCHUSTER

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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 Indias 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 information address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition May 2012

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Designed by Joy OMeara
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. MountaineersUnited StatesBiography. I. Title.

GV199.92.S59A3 2012
796.522092dc23 2011025391

ISBN 978-1-4391-9895-7
ISBN 978-1-4391-9897-1 (ebook)

Beyond the Sky

Be Strong

Three Pillars

The Amulet

Cold and Broken

The Ambush

Shared Purpose

Interconnected

A Map Comes Alive

The Amulet Decoded

In Order of Appearance