Shattered Air cover art

Shattered Air

A True Account of Catastrophe and Courage on Yosemite's Half Dome

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About this listen

 On the evening of July 27, 1985, five hikers made a fateful choice to climb Yosemite's fabled Half Dome, even as the sky darkened and thunder rolled. By night's end, two would be dead from a lightning strike, three gravely wounded, and desperate EMTs would be overseeing a harrowing midnight helicopter rescue.

Shattered Air is a haunting account of recklessness, tragedy, courage, and rescue, a book whose depiction of nature's power is tempered by unforgettable portraits of human courage and the will to survive.

©2005 Robert Madgic (P)2007 Blackstone Audio Inc. Climbing & Mountaineering Outdoors & Nature Sports Adventure Hiking Extreme Sports

Critic reviews

"[A] penetrating account of this tragedy." ( Booklist)
"If you've ever felt cavalier about dealing with mountain thunderstorms, this drama about lightning and death should fix it." ( San Francisco Chronicle)
"[A] well-written and thoroughly investigated account....Madgic's contribution to the adventure category is at once a terrifying story and an urgent cautionary tale." ( Publishers Weekly)
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This book’s first few chapters are a bit slow & mundane. They left me wondering if I read the description correctly. By the time I was halfway through it had got exciting to the point where I struggled to stop listening. It’s hard to imagine the trauma these people went through during the whole ordeal.

Slow starter

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I listened to the after Where you will find me’ and it definitely scratched the same itch. It was very informative about the hazards of hiking and slightly touched on risk management.

I felt like sometimes the author was confused about the audience. I don’t think many readers of this book would be unaware of what rock climbing is or what gear is needed for example. But I still found it very interesting.

But the voice actor really annoyed me, I felt like the cadence and intonation was really distracting in places. It was overly dramatic for a book I wanted to be quite dry and soothing to listen to.

Interesting story but voice actor was distracting

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I found it rather boring and tapped out on the 4th chapter. theres just way too much filler for my liking. I didnt need to hear a detailed over explained account of how one guy souped up his truck, so many things that just weren't relative to the story...just didnt hold my attention,

Got Bored before anything even happened

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Found it rather boring so stopped listening, shame really as I generally find these listens fascinating.

It didn’t get my interest.

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