Meetings On The Edge
A High-level Escape From Office Routine
Mags MacKean had an enviable London life, with a job in TV, a thriving social scene and home of her own. What she didn’t have was the time and space to be herself. Against all advice, the BBC journalist abandoned her career and armed with just a sleeping bag, a water bottle and fifteen maps, she walked the Pyrenees from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. She took up mountaineering and practiced skills to withstand the rigours of altitude. After months of chasing the seasons from one hemisphere to the other, the unimaginable happened: Mags developed a crippling fear of heights, and was as burnt out as ever before. There were always more routes to tackle and summits to attain. For all their inspiration and grandeur, mountains required the same dizzying ascension as the career ladder from which she had escaped…
Meetings On The Edge combines wisdom, wit and warmth in an engrossing tale of how one single woman decided to reject the conventional trappings of success. The stories are as much about the landscapes she roamed – a traverse of the Pyrenees, Alaska, Pacific North West, New Zealand and Himalaya – as her unlikely encounters along the way. The stories offer hope for anyone who has ever thought on the dreary commute home, there must be more to life than this.
Endorsements:
“Brave, witty and inspiring: Mags MacKean has written a fine book about swapping life at the office desk for life on the mountain ridge.”
Robert Macfarlane, author of Mountains of the Mind and The Wild Places
“Everybody dreams it but Mags MacKean has done it – turned her back on the office and climbed mountains instead. I went straight to her account of those I know best. It fast became clear she had seen and loved just the same Pyrenees as I have. My confidence in her story, and this heart-lifting book, grew.”
Matthew Parris, writer and broadcaster
“Mags is quite simply one of life’s braves!”
Bear Grylls, adventurer, TV presenter