Ed Viesturs is attempting the hardest climb of his career.

He's battling Annapurna, the Himalayan mountain that has eluded his illustrious 20-year mountaineering career, and nothing is going right.

He's struggling against unforgiving terrain, his team is falling apart, and worst of all, his satellite phone isn't working.

That means his wife, Paula, is half a world away in Washington state worried her husband has fallen victim to the mountain's impossible odds. One in two climbers don't come back from the treacherous topography of this 26,500-foot mountain in central Nepal. Even Everest would have created less stress, with its death rate of one in seven.

He imagines what she must be going through, his concentration shifting with each suffocating step - Viesturs doesn't use supplemental oxygen - to his wife's suffocating fear.

Once he reaches the summit, the disappointment of being unable to share his triumph with his wife diminishes the experience. Instead, he radios base camp and asks someone there to contact her.

Only after he makes it safely off the mountain and heads home does he fully understand what she went through.

He may have finally accomplished his goal of scaling all 14 peaks that are 8,000 meters (26,000 feet) and higher without supplemental oxygen - making him the first American and only the 12th ever to accomplish the feat - but Paula was up at 3 a.m., trying to plan how to tell their three young children their father wasn't coming home.

Her only hope in those hours came from her knowledge that Viesturs is heralded as one of the safest climbers in the world, a caution that has at times drawn criticism from other climbers - many accusing him of wasting time and money by not summiting on every attempt. But that caution has not only kept him alive, but kept his fingers and toes intact.

His struggles on the mountain, the support he gets from his family and his humble heroics all play out in his new biography, No Shortcuts to the Top, written with David Roberts.

The 47-year-old says his family, especially Paula, has always been his strongest supporter.

"Paula met me when I was already a climber, so I'm the same guy she fell in love with and married," said Viesturs, who was recently in Utah for the Outdoor Retailer show and spoke to The Tribune about his new book, in stores this week. "She doesn't dwell on the fact that I'm gone. She has three small children to take care of."

Viesturs tells readers his wife has an enormous motherhood gene, so she's quite content to raise the kids while he's globetrotting.

His wife isn't the only person who is grateful for Viesturs' philosophy: "Reaching the summit is optional. Getting down is mandatory."

Viesturs chronicles the many climbs he's made over the years, some successful and others not. Nearly every time he didn't make the top, it was because he stopped his ascent to help others who were stranded on the mountain face. His writing is never boastful, simply matter-of-fact. He never has to make the choice to interrupt his climb to help others, it is simply the only option.

"If you go with that attitude, being patient, you're going to be successful," said Viesturs, who describes the karma of the mountain as something that has kept him safe over the years.

That attitude has garnered huge respect throughout the world, said Utah climber Daniel Smith, who met Viesturs at the Outdoor Retailer show, but has avidly followed his career.

"He is greatly admired because of his willingness to help out other climbers," Smith said. "That is an attitude you don't get a lot from climbers who are on the bigger mountains."

Smith can understand Viesturs' drive to climb mountains and balance the risk.

"He is a very conservative climber, and he didn't rush headlong into the decision to scale the 14 tallest peaks," said Smith, who has unsuccessfully attempted Everest three times but usually sticks to mountains in the 20,000- to 22,000-foot range. "He approached this decision slowly and cautiously, and weighed the consequences."

Smith also says Viesturs is respected for his ability to judge conditions of a mountain.

In No Shortcuts to the Top, Viesturs details his involvement in the 1996 Everest disaster that was immortalized in Jon Krakauer's book Into Thin Air. While Viesturs, with an IMAX crew in tow, chose to wait to make his ascent, his good friends ascended. He doesn't withhold criticism of his friends' choice to make the climb, and he draws the reader into his frustration as he watches the situation worsen through a telescope and the grief that overwhelms him as he finds out his friends are dead after launching a rescue mission.

But emotion doesn't play a big role in most of Viesturs' climbs. He stays calm in the face of avalanches, instinctively digging into the cliff instead of panicking. He handles disappointment with optimism for the next climb. The only time he expresses emotion is over his wife and children, and they're one of the biggest reasons he focuses on safety.

He hopes that nonclimbers will latch onto the book for its harrowing climbing tales and learn respect for the mountain.

Viesturs still shakes his head in disbelief when he thinks of his childhood in Rockford, Ill., where the highest object was the water tower, to his final steps on Annapurna. Even though he started climbing Mount Rainier during college, and scraped together whatever money he could to reach international peaks, he was able to get sponsorships to fund his adventures.

For him, it's not the risk involved in climbing, but the ability to see some of the most beautiful places on Earth that few get to see.

"I manage the risk. I don't seek danger, I'm not an adrenaline junkie," he said. "I figure out the safe way to go in and have fun so I can live with the risk."

Even though Viesturs "retired" after scaling Annapurna in May 2005, he plans to take climbing groups up Mount Rainier and on Everest. But that means he spent his first spring home in 19 years, something that took adjustment.

"Paula and the kids have their own schedules, and I just tend to get in the way," he said.

But next spring, he plans to be on Everest, making his seventh successful summit of the mountain as a guide.

The 47-year-old knows climbing 8,000-meter peaks won't be possible forever. He hopes to get involved in helping outdoors companies design climbing equipment and gear, and to continue to tour the country giving motivational speeches.

But, he is grateful to say something most can't: "I have lived my dream."

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* SHEENA MCFARLAND can be e-mailed at smcfarland @sltrib.com or 801-257-8619. Send comments about this story to livingeditor@sltrib .com.