dr._francis_slakey_talk1 | CU-Boulder Environmental Studies Program

Dr. Francis Slakey Talk

Mon May 14, 2012. 03:30 pm - 04:30 pm
Foothills Lab 2 (3450 Mitchell Lane) Auditorium

Boulder Flatirons from the south

Category: Lecture

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Event Details

Dr. Francis Slakey Talk

Mon May 14, 2012. 03:30 pm - 04:30 pm
Foothills Lab 2 (3450 Mitchell Lane) Auditorium

To The Last Breath: A Memoir of Going to Extremes

Dr. Francis Slakey, Physicist; Georgetown University

In the bestselling tradition of Into Thin Air and Born to Run, Francis Slakey takes readers on a physical and spiritual journey to the most extreme points on Earth and deep inside the human spirit. Before Georgetown physics professor Francis Slakey decided to climb the highest mountain on every continent and surf every ocean, he had arranged his schedule to match his personal life: completely detached from other people. But as his journey veered dangerously off course, everything about him began to change. A gripping adventure of the body and mind, To the Last Breath depicts the quest that leads Slakey around the globe, almost takes his life, challenges his fiercely held beliefs, and opens his heart. The scientist in Slakey explores the history of Robert Falcon Scott’s doomed Antarctica expedition, the technology of climbing, and the geophysics of waves. But it is the challenges he endures and the people he encounters—a Lama who gives him a mysterious amulet, a life-or-death choice atop Everest, an ambush at gunpoint in Indonesia, a head-on collision in the high desert—that culminate in a moving lesson about what it means to be human. This book will be available for purchase after the talk, and Slakey will sign copies – it will also be on Amazon and at bookstores on May 8. If you get this book, you won’t be able to put it down. Cindy Schmidt read an advance copy, and as a result, had a couple of late nights! For more information on this upcoming talk, contact Laura Curtis.

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