Facing cancer, climber David Roberts reexamines the value of adventuring and extreme risk

David Roberts has spent several decades mountain climbing. In 1965, at age 22, he and Matt Hale, Ed Bernd and Don Jensen climbed the west face of Mount Huntington in Alaska. During the descent, Bernd fell 4000 feet and died. Fifty years later, Roberts was diagnosed with throat cancer. Now he’s out with a new book looking at mortality, and people’s relationships to extreme risk.