A brilliant student from Princeton University who does not need to study, John spends more time training himself for climbing than anything else. One day, he meets a girl and instantaneously falls in love with her. When he realises that she is the granddaughter of the world's most famous mountaineer, he yearns for the moment he will stand atop his dream mountain with her. Both a love story, initially improbable, the story becomes a search for self-fulfilment through the achievement of summiting the world's most technical climb.