Rock Climbers Abducted | Over the Edge with Climber and Author Greg Child | 5

Against The Odds

Wondery

Cassie De Pecol, History, Society & Culture, Dolby, Mike Corey, Dolby Atmos, Atmos

4.7 • 7.2K Ratings

🗓️ 28 December 2021

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

After being taken hostage by members of the Al Qaeda-linked Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the lives of four American climbers were never the same. And just one year later, the attack on the World Trade Center made the threat of terrorism more real for everyone. Mountaineer and author Greg Child interviewed all four climbers to tell their story in his book, Over the Edge. On this episode, he joins host Cassie De Pecol to describe the effect 9/11 had on the climbers, his own experiences climbing in Kyrgyzstan, and returning to the region with John Dickey and Jason Smith to face one of the men that had held them captive.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Prime members, you can listen to Against the Odds add free on Amazon music. Download the app today.
0:13.9	From Wendry, I'm Cassie Depegel and this is Against the Odds.
0:18.3	Over the last four episodes, we've told the story of four young climbers who
0:29.5	journeyed across the world to ascend the granite walls of Kyrgyzstan's Kara Siu Valley.
0:35.7	Early one morning, while camping on a rock face, the group awoke to gunfire and
0:41.8	were taken hostage by rebel insurgents. Six days later, fearing for their lives, they escaped their
0:49.4	captors and climbed to safety. Today, I'm speaking with Mountain Ear and author Greg Child.
0:56.2	Greg has reached the summit of K2 and Everest. His writing has appeared in outside
1:02.6	National Geographic and Climbing magazines. For his book Over the Edge,
1:07.9	Greg interviewed all four of the abducted climbers. In 2001, he returned to Kyrgyzstan with two of
1:14.6	them to face one of the men who helped them captive. The man was serving a life sentence in prison.
1:21.1	Greg Child, welcome to Against the Odds. Hello and thanks for having me.
1:25.8	I want to talk about the journey of these four climbers you so vividly captured in your book.
1:31.2	But first, I'm curious how you discovered your love for climbing.
1:35.0	I started climbing as a teenager. I grew up in Australia. It's not a place with any mountains in it,
1:40.7	but there's lots and lots of cliffs and rocks. I saw some climbers in action around Sydney.
1:46.7	I just immediately thought, oh, I want to try that. That was back in the early 70s.
1:51.5	There wasn't much in the way of a climbing scene at all back then. In the late 70s, I found myself
1:57.4	in your Simmity Valley the biggest cliffs that you can climb are really there. It was then and
2:04.4	is now an incredibly good place to go as a climber. Can you take us back to one of those early
2:10.1	summits or experiences you had on a rock face? Is there one that stands out? There's a million,
2:15.9	really. Climbing K2 in 1990 was maybe the peak of my career as a mountain climber.
	...

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