Not Set in Stone

Between the 1980s and 2015, Dave Vass became one of New Zealand’s leading mountaineers. In he recounts the beginning of his outdoor life caving and rafting, before turning to climbing and the hard routes on Mt Aspiring National Park and Darran Mountains in Fiordland. In 2015, however, everything changed. Coming out from a climbing trip, walking down a river at night in a gathering storm, a relatively minor slip resulted in a broken neck, and incomplete tetraplegia. Dave’s brave, compelling story concludes with how he makes sense of a completely changed life now lived in a wheelchair, far from the mountains.