I’ve just read Holderness resident Ty Gagne’s new book, The Last Traverse. I bought additional copies for Christmas gifts, going to both Gibson’s in Concord and Innisfree Bookstore in Meredith. Other New Hampshire bookstores should carry it. Ty specializes for his career in risk management. Both the new book about a hike gone tragic on Mt. Lafayette’s slopes and the former one (Where You’ll Find Me) build in risk awareness. At the same time, each tells in a riveting way of real people and what went wrong when terrible weather conditions changed everything in winter hiking.

The writing is good. I randomly open The Last Traverse and find: The winds have a soulless brutality to them. At one point when most severe conditions seem dooming, James Osborne realizes he’s let Fred Fredrickson do all the thinking, choosing. Gagne brings in “Heuristic Traps,” also a study by some. One possibly explains why so many otherwise thoughtful Republican Senators, Mitch McConnell at the top of the pile, fall into line behind President Trump’s foibles. “The Acceptance Heuristic occurs because, according to Ian McCammon, we ‘have a tendency to engage in activities that we think will get us noticed or accepted by people we like or respect, or by people we want to like and respect us’.” A Presidency comes with built-in urge to respect.

I buy this book (as I did Gagne’s first) with the idea that every relative or friend I give it to, people who do outdoors adventuring, may read it and pre-empt mistakes they could make by understanding what went wrong when even highly-qualified adventurers fail.