Kim A Journey Between Worlds

1957. I'm five years old. The cold wakes me, as it does when you have little to eat and not enough blankets. I'm thinking about those biscuits that our caregiver feeds the dogs. Would she miss a few biscuits?

1987. The heavens are reflecting icy blues. Climbing is easier to talk about than my childhood. I climb and climb and climb.

Born Māori (Ngātikahungunu), raised Pakeha, Kim Rangiaonui Logan's father was commander in D Company, 28th Māori Battallion, but returned from the war a damaged man.

He and his wife were unable to cope with two small boys, Kim and Wilfred. Their childhood was bleak and cruel, so Kim climbed and climbed - Everest, Aorangi Mt Cook, anywhere, he climbed away from his pain to success with mountaineers like Peter Hillary, and later as a guide and survivor, notably the chopper crash in the Mark Inglis/Phil Doole rescue. Always climbing, his marriage crashed, but then he met Glennys and his life turned around.

Now in his seventies, living in Queenstown and reconnecting with his Māori world, this is no misery memoir, nor merely another mountaineering book.

Kim Logan

Paperback