Judgement Days – Tom Richardson
Publisher – High Peak Books

If you visit the Peak District at all, you may know about an outdoor equipment shop there called Outside. A slim 50 something year old bloke runs their boot department. Friendly. Engaging. Knowledgeable. Tom Richardson is also, very probably, the most experienced mountaineer and expedition leader in Britain. He has done more than twice as many expeditions to the Greater Ranges as he is years old. Think about that for a second. He is over fifty.

This book, by Tom, aims ‘to reflect on decisions and judgements he has made in the mountains and tries to draw some conclusions about them and their sometimes life and death experiences’.
I review a lot of books, and i struggled to come up with a descriptive for this one. It is ‘important’ more than ‘good’. It is a small book (printed and published by a small publishing house in the Peak District), that genuinely adds value to ones interpretation of risk, decision-making, and the vitally important process of reflecting on, and making sense of, very serious events.

Spend the twelve pounds on it. Read it, digest it, learn from its deep and rich vault of hard earned experience. You may one day save yourself far, far more than the sum of twelve pounds