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By Steve Bell. Coming of age on the world’s toughest mountains.

“I didn’t climb mountains because I was brave, I climbed them because I was afraid. The fear of falling, of being buried alive by an avalanche, or being crushed to a pulp by collapsing cliffs, were nothing compared to my fear of not being enough. Frailty is easily hidden behind a mountain’s big reputation. So, dueling with death, that’s where I tucked mine”.

And so begins Steve Bell’s extraordinary autobiographical account of his formative years as he emerged as one of the most accomplished climbers of his generation. But this is no ordinary ‘by the numbers’ account. In Virgin on Insanity Steve opens his heart and bares his soul offering the reader a rare insight into the workings of a young man, who on one hand is almost crippled by youthful insecurity and self doubt, yet on the other hand is seen as one of Britain’s rising stars who managed daring winter ascents of both the Matterhorn and Eiger North Faces before he was twenty-one years old.

Steve Bell. First Edition, 2016. ISBN978-1-910240-83-0. Hardback, 246 pages.