Mark Synnott is the author of The Third Pole: Mystery, Obsession, and Death on Mount Everest and a twenty-four-year member of the North Face Global Athlete Team. He is also an internationally certified mountain guide and a trainer for the Pararescuemen of the United States Air Force. A frequent contributor to National Geographic magazine and has written for Outside, Men's Journal, Rock and Ice, and Climbing, he is the author of The Impossible Climb. He lives in the Mt. Washington Valley of New Hampshire.