Pete Takeda

Award-winning author Pete Takeda grew up in Boise, Idaho, dropped out of college in the mid-80’s, then moved to Yosemite Valley where he bussed tables for six years and climbed his brains out. Pete now writes and climbs in and around Boulder, Colorado. He has led expeditions to the Himalayas, climbed in Alaska, cragged in Australia, alpine climbed in India and Pakistan, bouldered in Nepal, whacked ice in Iceland, mixed it up in Scotland, pimped stone in Mexico and Europe, and scared himself silly on alpine, ice and mixed routes in the Canadian Rockies. Pete is a Senior Contributing Editor to Rock and Ice magazine and contributor to outdoor journals like Outside, Climbing, Alpinist, and Backpacker.

"One shot is of myself. The other guy is Mick Follari. Chacraraju Basecamp, Cordillera Blanca, Andes Mountains, Peru."

Besides being a long-time member of the Marmot Design Board, Pete also sits on the Board of Directors of The American Mountain Guides Association.

In 2007, Pete was honored by acceptance into The Explorers Club. He is also a long-term member of The American Alpine Club and The Himalayan Environment Trust.

The Terrifying Legacy of the Cold War’s Most Daring C.I.A. Operation - By Pete Takeda

Winner of the 2007 Kekoo Naoroji Memorial Himalayan Literature Award, An Eye at the Top of the World tell the tale of the Cold War CIA, who with cooperation of the Indian Government trained the world’s best mountaineers to spy on China using a transceiver powered by a plutonium battery. The battery held four pounds of alloyed plutonium-238 and plutonium-239. The device was lost in 1966 – avalanched into a glacier at the base of a legendary mountain called Nanda Devi. The glacier is the source of the Ganges River. Pete first heard this legend as a campfire yarn while living in Yosemite Valley in the 1980’s. Over the years the fable turned out to be fact. He then quit his day job and spent three years researching and writing An Eye at the Top of the World. In 2005, Takeda and three others traveled to the mythic Indian Himalayas to retrace the steps of the CIA expeditions – nearly losing their lives in attempting to unravel the mystery. Praise for An Eye at the Top of the World:  “Pete Takeda’s true-life thriller injects us into the heart of the Himalayas, where a forgotten CIA operation lost almost four pounds of plutonium at the source of the Ganges River. With millions of lives possibly at stake, high adventure doesn’t come anymore gripping than this.” —Jeff Long, New York Times Best Selling Author of The Descent and The Wall

Hardcover: 304 pages

Publisher: Thunder’s Mouth Press; 1st edition (September 4, 2006), Available now.

Language: English

ISBN: 1560258454