Cindy Abbott, this year's red lantern winner is more than just an Iditarod sled dog racer. And while it is not technically an Iditarod racing book, it is an inspirational musher autobiography and I have added her book to our Listing of Sled Dog, Mushing and Racing Books today. Although I had heard of Cindy battling a disease, I did not know about the book until this morning. Will be reading this myself very soon.
REACHING BEYOND THE CLOUDS: From Undiagnosed to Climbing Mt. Everest. By Cindy Abbott
After years of experiencing the frightening symptoms of a mysterious illness, at the age of 48, and with almost no mountaineering experience, Cindy Abbott decides to climb Mt. Everest. A few months after that fateful decision, she becomes functionally blind in one eye and is subsequently diagnosed with Wegener’s Granulomatosis, a rare, incurable and potentially life-threatening disease, but she refuses to give up on her dream. In this extraordinary and true story, Cindy Abbott takes us with her into one of nature’s most extreme environments while battling a rare disease that turns her own body against her. Less than five months after her diagnosis while climbing on Mt. Aconcagua in Argentina, she falls during the descent at nineteen thousand feet, breaks her leg, and is forced to climb down five thousand feet to base camp in order to be helicoptered off the mountain.
Cindy will be the first and only woman to climb Everest AND complete the Iditarod.