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Morning Light: Triumph at Sea & Tragedy on Everest
Margaret Griffiths' Morning Light: Triumph at Sea & Tragedy on Everest (Rocky Mountain $29.95) is a family story of high emotion that celebrates the need to explore.
Based on taped accounts, diaries, letters and news reports, it's about George Griffiths who, at age 68, in 1982, sailed solo from Britain to Barbados, where he was met by his two sons.
The younger son, Mark, joined his father to sail home to Canada by way of the Panama Canal and up the Pacific Coast, while Mark's older brother, Blair, flew home to begin work as a CBC cameraman documenting the Canadian Mount Everest Expedition Team, with its 26 climbers, 30 Sherpas and more than 200 porters.
Six months later, Blair Griffiths was crushed to death by a six-storey wall of Everest ice. Through heroic efforts the team finally managed to recover Blair's remains, and there followed a heartbreaking cremation on a pyre of rhododendron boughs. Eventually two of the team succeeded in summiting the mountain.
In 1985, George Griffiths trekked with his grandson to Everest Base Camp, where Blair's ashes were laid, to say goodbye to his lost son.
The foreword to this inspirational memoir is provided by veteran photographer and climber Pat Morrow.
Revered in the Gulf Islands for her work as a trustee for the Islands Trust, Galiano Island's Margaret Griffiths was married to George Griffiths and was the stepmother to Blair Griffiths.
978-1-897522-08-0
[BCBW 2009]
Based on taped accounts, diaries, letters and news reports, it's about George Griffiths who, at age 68, in 1982, sailed solo from Britain to Barbados, where he was met by his two sons.
The younger son, Mark, joined his father to sail home to Canada by way of the Panama Canal and up the Pacific Coast, while Mark's older brother, Blair, flew home to begin work as a CBC cameraman documenting the Canadian Mount Everest Expedition Team, with its 26 climbers, 30 Sherpas and more than 200 porters.
Six months later, Blair Griffiths was crushed to death by a six-storey wall of Everest ice. Through heroic efforts the team finally managed to recover Blair's remains, and there followed a heartbreaking cremation on a pyre of rhododendron boughs. Eventually two of the team succeeded in summiting the mountain.
In 1985, George Griffiths trekked with his grandson to Everest Base Camp, where Blair's ashes were laid, to say goodbye to his lost son.
The foreword to this inspirational memoir is provided by veteran photographer and climber Pat Morrow.
Revered in the Gulf Islands for her work as a trustee for the Islands Trust, Galiano Island's Margaret Griffiths was married to George Griffiths and was the stepmother to Blair Griffiths.
978-1-897522-08-0
[BCBW 2009]
Submitted on March 10, 2009 in By David.
