I met today’s guest, John Branch,  in 2017. He emailed me asking to interview me about something I witnessed on Mount Everest the previous year. 

John Branch wanted to hear my story about having crossed paths with three men who lost their lives close to the summit of the mountain. I encountered each one of them in their last moments of life. One can imagine how helpless I felt in knowing there was nothing I could do to save them. 

The upper reaches of Everest is an area known as The Death Zone - where no human can survive for more than a day or two. The Death Zone can suck the life and energy out of even the world’s strongest and most capable athletes. The frozen bodies at Camp 4, at 26,000 feet or 8,000 meters, is proof of that. 

John is a sports writer for the New York Times. Not just any kind of sports writer. He writes about off the beaten track sports, like mountaineering, climbing, skiing….and offbeat sports like wingsuit flying, bowling, even Rubik’s Cube competitions.

John says he’s more interested in the human side of the story than the scoreboard. And, it turns out I knew about John and his work before ever actually spoke on the telephone. Having survived a near deadly avalanche in my home state of New Hampshire, I was riveted by his story called ‘Snow Fall”, about skiers killed in an avalanche in Washington State. The story won John a Pulitzer Prize.

He’s a master at his craft, the best-selling author of Boy On Ice and The Last Cowboys. And he just released a book featuring 20 of his favorite stories from over 2,000 he’s written for the NY Times, called Sidecountry: Tales of Death and Life From the Back Roads of Sports. 

The article he interviewed me for, called Deliverance from 27,000 Feet, is in his new book. It brings up so much emotion for me personally that I can’t say I’ll ever read it again. 

I caught up with John in August of 2021 from his home near San Francisco. He’d just returned from Tokyo, where he was reporting on the Tokyo Olympics. As I said John is no ordinary sports writer. His take on the Olympics and what he experienced there is, well, what makes John Branch so….John Branch. 

Here’s my conversation with John: