Over the Edge
The True Story of Four American Climbers’ Kidnap and Escape in the Mountains
of Central Asia
by Greg Child
Before dawn on August 12, 2000, four of America’s best young rock climbers,
the oldest of them only twenty-five, were sleeping in their portaledges high
on the Yellow Wall in the Pamir-Alai mountain range of Kyrgyzstan, in
central Asia. By daybreak, they would be taken at gunpoint by fanatical
militants of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), which operates out of
secret bases in Tajikstan and Afghanistan, and which is linked to Osama bin
Laden’s Al Qaeda network. The desperadoes – themselves barely out of their
teens – intended to use their hostages as human shields and for ransom as
they moved across Kyrgystan, They hid the climbers by day and marched them
by night through freezing, treacherous mountains, with little food, no clean
water, and the constant threat of execution. The four would see a fellow
hostage, a Kyrgyz soldier, executed before their eyes. And in a remarkable
life-and-death crucible over six terrifying days, they would be forced to
choose between saving their own lives and committing an act none of them
thought they ever could. Illustrated with B&W photos.
Villard, New York, 2002, First Edition, 284 pages, 6 ˝” x 9 ˝”, black boards
with red spine and black lettering, dust jacket, illustrated.
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