The Ascent

Published 2010 by Medallion Press, Inc.

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is a registered trademark of Medallion Press, Inc.

If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment from this “stripped book.”

Copyright © 2010 by Ronald Malfi

Cover design by James Tampa

Edited by Lorie Popp

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Typeset in Adobe Garamond Pro

Printed in the United

States of America Title font set in Cacavia01

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Malfi, Ronald Damien.

The ascent : a novel of survival / Ronald Malfi.

p. cm.

ISBN-13: 978-1-60542-067-7 (alk. paper)

ISBN-10: 1-60542-067-0 (alk. paper)

1. Self-actualization (Psychology)–Fiction. 2. Mountaineering–Fiction. 3. Psychological fiction. I. Title.

PS3613.A4355A93 2010

813’.6–dc22

2010008942

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

First Edition