Chris Dame is an accidental mountaineer. Years ago while sitting in his dentist's chair he spied peculiar pictures of people hanging from ropes in the mountains. Since secretly he has wanted to stand on summits since he visited Grindalwald as an exchange student in 1964, his curiosity overcame his better judgment. After brief instruction from the Appalachian Mountain Club he found himself in Chile's famous Lake District slogging up 11,000 foot Volcano Villerica while visiting a daughter. One step led to another and soon Mr. Dame found himself accompanying his new Chilean mountain guide friend Mauricio, climbing above 20,000 feet along the Chilean border. Mr. Dame took up photography as a relief from the boredom of putting one foot in front of the other, hour after hour. Since then Mr. Dame has summited miniscule peaks in the Whites, the Andes, the Himalayas, and the Canadian Rockies, some on foot, many on hands and knees, and one flat out on his belly. At all times and weathers, personal and physical, he attempts to hold fast to his one cardinal rule: one hand for the mountain, one hand for friends, and the remaining hand for the camera. After thousands of miles of travel, months of tedious exertion, and countless nights shivering in tents, Mr. Dame's greatest insight thus far can be summed up in the single observation: This thing would be a whole lot easier if I was younger and knew what I was doing.