Golden Arrow Books Fiva: An Adventure That Went Wrong

Winner of the Banff Festival Prize for Best Mountain and Wildernesss Literature 2012 and shortlisted for the Boardman Tasker Award 2012.

Fiva: An Adventure That Went Wrong is the epic true account from Gordon Stainforth of a near-death experience on a mountain in Norway in 1969.

In the summer of 1969, as Apollo 11 was blasting off to the moon, two teenage twin brothers, with only three years' mountaineering experience, set off to climb one of the highest rock faces in Europe. With just two bars of chocolate, some sandwiches, a four-sentence route description and an old sketch map, they left their tent early one morning with the full expectation of being back in time for tea. Within a few hours things had gone badly wrong, they were looking death in the face, and the English Home Counties seemed very far away...

"What a brilliant and refreshing read! Once started you just can't put it down." – Sir Chris Bonington CBE.

"Absolutely superb and totally gripping from the first few pages until the end. What an adventure! I think it's a future classic." – Richard Else, TV Producer.

"This magnificent book, enjoyed enormously during wet leaf delays at Clapham, was a breath of civilised fresh air. I love the period detail, the humour, the visceral sense of wild landscape and the nail-biting denouement." – Stephen Venables, mountaineer and author.

"It's tremendous; and also a very accessible read for a non-climber. The pace is excellent – no slack in the rope! It made me laugh. It's a cracking story." – Hilary McKay, winner of The Whitbread Prize.