Out now in the UK, USA and Hong Kong!

Voted Book of the Month by Amberley Publishing!

“Climbing the Seven Volcanoes is one of the best mountaineering/travel volumes I have read in many years.” – Sierra Echo (Sierra Club)

“Sure-footed on the page as well as the peaks, the author’s deft descriptions of the physical and spiritual elements of her adventure mean the book is often gripping and moving in the space of a page.” – Geographical Magazine, Royal Geographical Society

“Cairns created a page turner, where the reader is desperate to find out whether she makes it to her world record or whether the next mountain might be too much.” – Women Climb

“Climbing the Seven Volcanoes tells the story of her climbs, the literal and figurative ups and downs of reaching the tops of these volcanoes, often more than 5000m above sea level, a challenge complicated by asthma … But it’s her flashbacks to Hong Kong that bring her story to another level.” – Asian Review of Books

Order from Amberley Publishing (UK) here

I was smothered in a purple goose down onesie as thick as a duvet. Under the plush expedition suit, I wore two pairs of climbing pants, a soft shell jacket, a fleece top, a pair of inner gloves, a pair of outer gloves, and plastic boots. Not to mention thermal underwear. My plastic climbing boots barely closed around my ankles, which were adorned with three layers of socks.’
Only to be told by those lounging around in T-shirts and shorts: ‘You don’t need to wear your Antarctica clothes yet. Everyone changes on the plane.’

Everything changed for Sophie Cairns when she was thirty and a party-loving journalist in China. Her father died so suddenly that she arrived at his bedside two hours too late. In her grief, she defied her chronic asthma and climbed the world s seven highest volcanoes to raise funds for charity in his memory. This is a story of redemption through mountain climbing, from Papua New Guinea to Russia by way of Antarctica.

Order from Amberley Publishing (UK) here

Order from Amazon USA here

Order from Bookazine (HK) here

As an amateur climber the author does not gloss over her limitations and (sometimes hilarious) mistakes. She encounters the snobbery of the professional climbing world. ‘I was smothered in a purple goose down onesie as thick as a duvet. Under the plush expedition suit, I wore two pairs of climbing pants, a soft shell jacket, a fleece top, a pair of inner gloves, a pair of outer gloves, and plastic boots. Not to mention thermal underwear. My plastic climbing boots barely closed around my ankles, which were adorned with three layers of socks.’ Only to be told by those lounging around in T-shirts and shorts: ‘You don’t need to wear your Antarctica clothes yet. Everyone changes on the plane.’

She suffers altitude sickness – so much more dangerous for an asthmatic – but she makes it. Sophie somehow finally said goodbye to her father in that enormous ring of fire.