The Path of 8

In 2002, Amber Christensen was brutally bitten by a dog while traveling through Argentina. She was forced to change her travel plans, which led her to Aconcagua—the highest mountain in the Southern Hemisphere—where she met a handsome and charming Argentine mountain guide named Fede. After spending only three days together, the two had fallen deeply in love. They embarked upon a bicontinental life together, lit by love and adventure, fraught with challenges, and darkened by senseless tragedy. After only three years of marriage, Fede was caught in a storm on the summit of the same mountain where their love story had begun. A torturous search and rescue effort ensued, ultimately ending in his death. A video later surfaced which revealed that the rescue attempt had been negligent. In the wake of Fede’s untimely passing, Amber was forced to face the mountain that had both blessed and cursed her life and to find a way to create meaning and purpose from insurmountable loss. This is a story of love, death, and moving mountains. Christensen recounts her journey of bicultural love and grief, which brings her back again and again to a twisting mountain trail that offers her transformation, transcendence, and an ultimate acceptance: that in any language, culture or moment, comprender la muerte es comprender la vida (to understand death is to understand life).