The Summit

The third and final book in Gordon Korman's Everest trilogy follows the SummitQuest expedition, a team of teenage climbers attempting to become the youngest people ever to summit Mount Everest. The team is led by Cap Cicero, a legendary American alpinist, and sponsored by Summit Athletic Corporation. The four teen climbers are thirteen-year-old Dominic Alexis, the youngest and smallest; fourteen-year-old Tilt Crowley, strong and aggressive; Perry Noonan, a reluctant climber whose billionaire uncle Joe Sullivan founded Summit Athletic; and Samantha "Sammi" Moon, a fearless thrill-seeker. They are guided by cameraman Lenny "Sneezy" Tkakzuk, Dr. Andrea Oberman, and head Sherpa Babu Pemba.

The story opens with the team's second summit attempt after their first was abandoned for a rescue. Ascending into the Death Zone, the oxygen-starved altitude band above 25,000 feet, they reach Camp Four on the South Col, a high saddle at 26,000 feet. That night, a windstorm destroys every tent on the Col, rolling the teens' shelter to within fifteen feet of a four-thousand-foot drop. Cicero slashes the tent open while Babu throws himself on the wreckage to halt it. With no camp to return to, the team retreats to the village of Gorak Shep to rest.

During the wait, hostile articles in the National Daily newspaper blame Dominic for a rescue incident Cicero considers heroic. Sammi suspects Ethan Zaph, a famous young climber on the rival This Way Up expedition and the current record holder as the youngest person to summit Everest. In truth, Tilt is the source, using the leaks to discredit Dominic, who, being younger, would break the record if both reached the top.

The coverage triggers real consequences. Two Nepalese government officials remove Dominic from SummitQuest's climbing permit and threaten Cicero with a lifetime ban from Nepal. Since Nepal is home to Everest and three-quarters of the world's highest peaks, the ban would end Cicero's career. Cicero orders his team not to tell Dominic, but Tilt overhears and tells Dominic during a rock scramble. Devastated, Dominic resolves he cannot destroy Cicero's career and decides not to climb.

When weather services report a final window of clear weather, the team rushes back to a nearly deserted Base Camp where not a single climber has summited all season. Cicero begs Dominic to climb, but Dominic refuses. The team departs without him.

On the morning of the summit push, Dominic visits Ethan, who proposes a plan. Ethan's teammate Nestor Ali was evacuated after an injury, leaving an open slot on This Way Up's permit. If Dominic climbs under that permit, Cicero cannot be held responsible. Dominic gives Ethan a vial of Dead Sea sand belonging to his older brother, Chris Alexis, who was cut from SummitQuest. Chris wanted the sand, from the lowest point on Earth, placed on the summit. Dominic agrees and suits up. The Nepalese officials, seeing Dominic absent from SummitQuest, depart.

Dominic, Ethan, and Pasang, a Sherpa from This Way Up, enter the Khumbu Icefall, the unstable glacier maze on Everest's lower slopes. An ice bridge collapses under Dominic, but his safety rope catches him and he climbs out.

Meanwhile, Perry drafts an email to Uncle Joe confessing he never wanted to climb. Cicero finds the unsent message and sends it. At Camp Four, Cicero shows Perry his uncle's reply telling him to come home. Perry accepts until Tilt mocks his weakness, prompting Perry to decide to climb after all.

On the Col, Tilt encounters Dominic in climbing gear and learns he is ascending with Ethan. Dominic asks Tilt to keep his presence secret. Tilt agrees and embraces him, but during the hug, he turns Dominic's oxygen regulator to maximum flow. At four liters per minute instead of two, Dominic's supply will run out around 28,000 feet, well below the summit.

Tilt and Sneezy depart early for the summit. Ethan and Dominic take a steep shortcut to avoid SummitQuest's path, but the unroped cliff consumes hours. Pasang cannot join them; he developed snow blindness. On the standard route, Perry's crampons lose purchase on ice, and he falls the height of a fifty-story building before stopping on a ledge inches from a seven-thousand-foot drop. He survives with broken ribs. His summit bid, and Cicero's, ends here. Sammi and Babu press higher but are forced to turn back at the two o'clock turnaround deadline, still a thousand vertical feet from the top.

Tilt conquers the Hillary Step, a steep cliff near the summit, and continues until the ground slopes downward. He has reached the summit of Everest, becoming the youngest person ever to do so.

At 28,300 feet, Dominic collapses. Ethan discovers the regulator set to maximum and the cylinder empty. He gives Dominic his own oxygen and continues without supplemental gas. At the Hillary Step, Ethan drops the cylinder into deep snow, costing another hour. On the slope below the South Summit, the last major waypoint before the true peak, Ethan collapses. Dominic gives him the oxygen and climbs the pitch without gas. They reach the South Summit at 1:40 P.M., dangerously late.

At Camp Four, Tilt discovers that Ethan and Dominic have not returned. Consumed by guilt over his sabotage, he packs spare oxygen and heads back up alone. His laptop, still connected to the satellite phone, has blocked incoming calls for hours. A major storm has formed, and weather services cannot warn the team.

Ethan and Dominic reach the summit. Ethan returns Chris's Dead Sea sand necklace, and Dominic whispers his brother's motto to the vial. Cicero contacts them by radio, having discovered the truth from Tilt's incriminating emails to the National Daily on the laptop. Furious but focused, Cicero tells them a blizzard is climbing the south side. They must descend the unfamiliar North Face, where a British team has left a camp at 27,000 feet.

Radio contact fades within twenty minutes. Their oxygen runs out, Ethan's lamp dies, and the blizzard engulfs them. They descend blind through a rock trench for hours, never finding the British camp.

On the south side, Tilt searches in the blizzard. He nearly walks off the Kangshung Face, Everest's sheer eastern wall. His oxygen regulator freezes. He sits in the snow and cannot rise. As hypothermia sets in, Tilt imagines a press conference celebrating him as Everest's hero. The vision dissolves into blackness.

Ethan and Dominic shelter overnight in a shallow crevasse with an ice roof. Both sleep despite the danger. Dominic wakes at dawn and finds neither has frostbite. They follow a ridge for hours until a massive snow-covered shoulder appears below, one that cannot exist on the north side. Dominic realizes they unknowingly traversed to Everest's west ridge during the storm. From the West Shoulder at 24,000 feet, they spot the Western Cwm, the glacial valley containing Camp Two, far below.

At Camp Two, Cicero believes three teenagers are dead. Sammi notices two tiny figures on the West Shoulder. Cicero recognizes Dominic's extra-small red wind suit through binoculars and sprints up the slope with rope, weeping for the first time in his career. He brings the boys down to camp.

Babu and Pasang locate Tilt's body a few hundred yards from the route to Camp Four, close but unreachable in the blizzard. The body cannot be recovered; the Sherpas wrap it in salvaged tent fabric. The monsoon begins, and Cicero guides the survivors to Base Camp.

At Tilt's memorial service, over a hundred mourners gather. Reporters ask about Dominic being the youngest person to summit Everest. When Sammi asks if Cicero identified the leak, he says no, protecting Tilt's memory. Dominic endures the service in anguish, feeling the accusatory gaze of Tilt's mother. Chris sits behind him, wearing the Dead Sea sand vial. Cicero delivers a brief eulogy, pointing to a life-size summit photo and declaring that Tilt beat the mountain. He flashes the alpinist's thumbs-up. The climbers understand. Dominic feels a familiar urge returning: the drive to defy gravity, seek distant summits, and climb.