Descent to Mars

About Descent to Mars

This classic essay from Jon Krakauer is now available as an unabridged audiobook download. This essay is also included in the Classic Krakauer collection.

From the bestselling author of Missoula and Into the Wild: a selection of the singular investigative journalism that made Krakauer famous, covering topics from avalanches on Mt. Everest to a volcano in Washington state; from a wilderness therapy program for teens to an extraordinary cave in New Mexico so unearthly that is used by NASA to better understand Mars.

In these fascinating essays–first published in the pages of The New Yorker, Outside, Smithsonian, and Rolling Stone, among others–Jon Krakauer shows why he is considered one of the finest investigative journalists of our time. The articles, gathered together here for the first time, take us from an otherworldly cave in New Mexico to the heights of Mt. Everest; from the foot of the volcano Mt. Ranier to the Gates of the Arctic in Alaska; from the notebook of one Fred Becky, who has catalogued the greatest unclimbed mountaineering routes on the planet, to the last days of legendary surfer Mark Foo. These extraordinary articles are unified by the author’s passion for nature and unrelenting search for truth.