Kim - A Journey Between Worlds by Kim Rangiaonui Logan

Kim – A Journey Between Worlds is the story of Kim Rangiaonuni Logan, inviting readers into a life of extremes, weaving together the rugged terrain of mountaineering and the rugged contours of his early years. Born Ngāti Kāhungunu and raised in a home marked by absence, this memoir charts his climb from a childhood scarred by indifference into a life of peaks, both literal and metaphorical.

Logan’s narrative opens in the foothills of his identity: a father who returned from war with honours but little tenderness, a mother distant and consumed by her social sphere. Rather than collapse under the weight of this upbringing, Logan turned to the mountains. From New Zealand’s Aoraki / Mount Cook to the icy altitudes of Everest and K2, climbing became his language, his sanctuary and ultimately his redemption. The memoir carries the reader from freezing ridgelines to the vineyards of Central Otago, capturing a life that refuses to settle.

What resonates throughout is Logan’s unflinching self-examination. His mountaineering achievements (spectacular though they are) do not overshadow the deeper terrain he traverses: the struggle for whānau, the push and pull between Māori and Pākehā heritage, the search for a place to belong. The people he meets along the way: climbers, friends, rivals, companions, all serve as mirrors to his own evolution, reflecting both the loneliness and the kinship of a life on the edge. And, of course, the Hillary climbing family dynasty are a prominent feature of this section.

The book examines risk and reward, not just in terms of altitude but in human terms. The mountains are formidable but simple: one misstep and the outcome is final.

Logan juxtaposes this clarity to the murk of childhood neglect and cultural displacement, showing how one can learn to live with both a rope and an emotional scar. He probes what ambition costs, what fatherhood demands, and what home might mean when the peaks behind you still call.

Stylistically the memoir is direct and vivid. Logan describes ice flows, gears, crampons and storms with the precision of a guide, yet also reveals the metaphors those moments carry: survival, trust, letting go. At times the prose becomes reflective, still as a glacier; at other moments it leaps in adrenaline. While some chapters recount climbing episodes that may feel familiar to fans of alpine literature, others pause with quiet intimacy: a childhood memory, a relationship reconciled, a cultural reconnection.

In literary significance, Logan’s story stands out not only among mountaineering memoirs but within New Zealand writing. His dual heritage and journey between worlds, indigenous and national, wilderness and vineyard, trauma and triumph, offer a distinct voice. Memoirs of great climbs are many; fewer excavate the climb inward as compellingly as this one.

Kim – A Journey Between Worlds is more than an account of summits and survival. It is a testament to the possibility of transformation, of carving identity out of absence, and of standing on heights both physical and personal. For readers drawn to tales of adventure, of displacement, of reconnection, Logan’s climb is well worth the ascent.

Reviewer: Chris Reed

Ugly Hill Press