Although there are tragedies in this collection, "Dangerous Games" is no mere litany of disasters; "I prefer to write about the living, " says Todhunter. "I want to know what pushes them to their own edge and what brings them back."

Here are nonsporting stories as well: The Taming of the Saw, " an essay about learning to use a chainsaw in New York's Catskill Mountains; "The Wreck of the Belle, " recounting a week spent with nautical archaeologists diving for a seventeenth-century French shipwreck; and finally, "Winter Passage, " Todhunter's account of an Atlantic crossing, in January, on a German freighter.

Beautifully written and meticulously reported from the front lines of America's obsession with risk sports, "Dangerous Games" is a classic collection of adventure tales from one of America's finest outdoor writers.