Winter 2020: IT’S OUT!! My book, Climbing the Seven Volcanoes: A Search for Strength is now available in the UK, USA and Hong Kong!
“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
Order from Amazon UK
Order from Amazon USA
Order from Bookazine (Hong Kong)
“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 brings her story to another level.” – Asian Review of Books
“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.
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.”
Order from Amazon USA
Order here from Amberley Publishing (UK)
Order from Bookazine (Hong Kong)
November 2020: Very excited to be speaking at the Royal Geographical Society Hong Kong!
“Climbing the Seven Volcanic Summits: A Hongkonger’s 6-month Odyssey”. November 24 (Tuesday), 7.00 pm – 8.00 pm (Hong Kong time/11.00 am – 12.00 pm UK time)
January 2019: So thrilled to speak at the Sierra Club (Sierra Peaks Section) Annual Banquet!
Seven Volcanoes Project 