How do we reconcile our love of outdoor adventure with the inevitability of loss in high-risk sports? Author and professional climber Graham Zimmerman will talk about this during the latest Edmonds Waterfront Center author and speaker series event, set for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 7

Still in his 30s, Zimmerman has made first ascents from Alaska to Pakistan, and in 2020 he received the Piolet d’Or for his climb on Pakistan’s Link Sar with Steve Swenson. A sponsored athlete who is sought out as a climbing partner, Zimmerman knows that he must find a balance between his ambitions as an alpinist and his social responsibilities — as a husband, climate advocate and community leader. His generation has faced devastating grief in the mountains, and his cohort has witnessed firsthand the effects of climate change in the form of disappearing glaciers and increasingly erratic weather.

Zimmerman writes of the exhilaration he feels while climbing but also the painful realization that summiting at all costs is an outdated model. As A Fine Line traces Graham’s journey, mountain lovers everywhere will see themselves in this coming-of-age story of adventure and personal reckoning.