You are leaving nationalgeographic.com. Different terms of use will apply.
On April 8, explorer and photographer Cory Richards—National Geographic’s 2012 Adventurer of the Year—begins his third expedition to climb Mt. Everest.
As Richards tells it, he began pursuing high-risk adventures when he was a troubled teen, to fend off personal demons. But they haunted him, and over the years they multiplied to include alcoholism, infidelity, and trauma from a brush with death.
Now 35, Richards says he’s ready for Everest—and has made peace with his past through “a singular solution: honesty.” He has told his life story, illustrated with some of his most famous photos, to audiences around the world. Here are excerpts.
This photograph of me at about age three was taken in a campground, and that says something about my parents. My parents believed that getting my brother and me outside and instilling within us a curiosity about the natural world was pivotal to our development, so they began that process very early. That curiosity has been helpful for me throughout my life.
That said, in my adolescence I felt very much like a social misfit. The truth...
Copyright © 1996-2015 National Geographic Society.
Copyright © 2015-2021 National Geographic Partners, LLC. All rights reserved