Venables shares this rousing account of his 1988 climb of the East Face of Mount Everest, where he led three unknown American climbers up a sheer avalanche-swept wall of snow and ice -- without a supply of oxygen. Photos.

Stephen Venables and three companions made the first ascent of Panchu Chuli Va remote Himalayan peak on the borders of India, Nepal and Tibet. A rappel anchor failed on the descent, pitching Venables into a 300-foot fall. Crashing through the black night, flung from rock to rock, he assumed that he was plunging to his death. Against all odds he survived, but was left stranded 19,000 feet above a labyrinth of glaciers and snow slopes with two broken legs, the threat of gangrene, and scant food or medical supplies. If he was to return to his wife and son waiting at home some 5000 miles away,...