Sheldon Webster climbed Russia's Mt. Elbrus in September 1998. From there, he took the Trans-Mongolian Express from Moscow to Beijing, China, indulging another of his passions-riding trains.

Sheldon Burton Webster is a 54-year-old certified public accountant, and that's just about the last tame thing that can be said of him.

Webster, a 1966 Mississippi State graduate and executive vice president of Borland, Benefield, Crawford & Webster in Birmingham, Ala., is an avid sportsman, sailor, mountain climber, and conservationist who has traveled to more than 70 countries in pursuit of adventure.

In 1988, he was a crew member aboard the sailing yacht Encounter, which almost sank in a terrific storm while crossing the Atlantic Ocean. He has scaled major peaks on four continents, nearly dying on Mt. McKinley in 1997. On somewhat safer ground, he is an avid hunter and serves on the board of directors of the Alabama Wild Turkey Federation.

In recent years, Webster has embarked on another risky enterprise-fiction writing-and he approaches it with his characteristic vigor. He is the author of a collection of short stories, The Betheaden Road, published by Dan River Press in 1994, and last fall, his first novel was published by Rutledge Books of Danbury, Conn. The Voyage of the Encounter is a fast-paced tale of danger and intrigue on the high seas, based partly on his own near-fatal sailing adventure.

Webster currently is at work on a second novel, tentatively titled The House of Sugar, about a CIA drug conspiracy in Cuba and Colombia.