Download or read book K2 The Savage Mountain written by Charles Houston and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-10-01 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When eleven climbers died on K2 on August 1, 2008, it was a stark reminder that the world's second-highest mountain has, for more than a century, been regarded as the most difficult and dangerous of all—for every four people who reach the top, one dies in the attempt. K2, The Savage Mountain tells the dramatic story of the 1953 American expedition, led by Charles S. Houston, when a combination of terrible storms and illness stopped the team short of the 28,251-foot summit. Then on the descent, tragedy struck, and how the climbers made it back to safety is renowned in the annals of climbing. K2, The Savage Mountain captures this sensational tale with an unmatched power that has earned this book its place as one of the classics of mountaineering literature.
Download or read book K2 written by Ed Viesturs and published by Crown. This book was released on 2010-08-03 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A thrilling chronicle of the tragedy-ridden history of climbing the world's most difficult and unpredictable mountain, by the bestselling authors of The Mountain and No Shortcuts to the Top “Gripping . . . reveals a good deal about the rarefied noble-gonzo world of high-altitude mountaineering.”—The New York Times Ed Viesturs, one of the world's premier high-altitude mountaineers, explores the remarkable history of K2 and of those who have attempted to conquer it. At the same time, he probes the mountain's most memorable sagas in order to illustrate lessons about the fundamental questions mountaineering raises—questions of risk, ambition, loyalty to one's teammates, self-sacrifice, and the price of glory. Viesturs knows the mountain firsthand. He and renowned alpinist Scott Fischer climbed it in 1992 and got caught in an avalanche that sent them sliding to almost certain death before Ed managed to get into a self-arrest position with his ice ax and stop both his fall and Scott's. Focusing on seven of the mountain's most dramatic campaigns, from his own troubled ascent to the 2008 tragedy, Viesturs crafts an edge-of-your-seat narrative that climbers and armchair travelers alike will find unforgettably compelling. With photographs from Viesturs's personal collection and from historical sources, this is the definitive account of the world's ultimate mountain, and of the lessons that can be gleaned from struggling toward its elusive summit.
Download or read book Five Miles High written by Robert H. Bates and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The epic account of the 1938 American expedition to the summit of K2. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.
Download or read book Victory Over K2 Second Highest Peak in the World written by Ardito Desio and published by . This book was released on 1956 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Last Blue Mountain written by Ralph Barker and published by Vertebrate Publishing. This book was released on 2020-03-05 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'When an accident occurs, something may emerge of lasting value, for the human spirit may rise to its greatest heights. This happened on Haramosh.' The Last Blue Mountain is the heart-rending true story of the 1957 expedition to Mount Haramosh in the Karakoram range in Pakistan. With the summit beyond reach, four young climbers are about to return to camp. Their brief pause to enjoy the view and take photographs is interrupted by an avalanche which sweeps Bernard Jillott and John Emery hundreds of feet down the mountain into a snow basin. Miraculously, they both survive the fall. Rae Culbert and Tony Streather risk their own lives to rescue their friends, only to become stranded alongside them. The group's efforts to return to safety are increasingly desperate, hampered by injury, exhaustion and the loss of vital climbing gear. Against the odds, Jillott and Emery manage to climb out of the snow basin and head for camp, hoping to reach food, water and assistance in time to save themselves and their companions from an icy grave. But another cruel twist of fate awaits them. An acclaimed mountaineering classic in the same genre as Joe Simpson's Touching the Void , Ralph Barker's The Last Blue Mountain is an epic tale of friendship and fortitude in the face of tragedy.
Download or read book Blank on the Map written by Eric Shipton and published by Vertebrate Publishing. This book was released on 2014-12-17 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'As I studied the maps, one thing about them captured my imagination - Across this blank space was written one challenging word, "Unexplored"' In 1937 two of the twentieth century's greatest explorers set off to explore an unknown area of the Himalaya, the breath-taking Shaksgam mountains. With a team of surveyors and Sherpas, Eric Shipton and H.W. Tilman located and mapped the land around K2, the second-highest mountain in the world. It was their greatest venture, and one that paved the way for all future mountaineering in that area of the Himalaya. For Shipton and Tilman, exploration was everything, with a summit a welcome bonus, and Blank on the Map is the book that best captures their spirit of adventure. With an observant eye and keen sense of humour, Shipton tells how the expedition entered the unknown Shaksgam mountains, crossing impenetrable gorges, huge rivers and endless snow fields. There's a very human element to in Shipton's dealings with his Sherpa friends, and with his Balti porters, some of whom were helpful, while some were less so. The expedition uncovers traces of ancient cultures and visits vibrant modern civilisations living during the last days of the British Empire. Only when all supplies are exhausted, their clothes in tatters and all equipment lost do the men finally return home. A mountain exploration classic.
Download or read book False Summit written by Julie Rak and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 2021-04-14 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The race to climb Everest catapulted mountain climbing, with its accompanying images of conquest and sport, into the public sphere on a global scale. But as a metaphor for the pinnacle of human achievement, mountaineering remains the preserve of traditional white male heroism. False Summit unpacks gender politics in the expedition narratives and memoirs of mountaineers in the Himalayas and the Karakoram. Why are women still a minority in the world's highest places? Julie Rak proposes that the genre has itself reached a "false summit" – a peak that proves not to be the pinnacle – and that mountaineering is not ready to welcome other ways of climbing or other kinds of climbers. For more than two centuries mountaineering, as an activity and as an ideal, has helped shape how the self is understood within the context of conquest, adventure, and proximity to risk. As climbing shows signs of becoming more diverse, Rak asks why change is so hard to achieve and why gender bias and other inequities exist in climbing at all. Exploring classic and lesser-known expedition accounts from Everest, K2, and Annapurna, False Summit helps us understand why mountaineering remains one of the most important ways to articulate gender identities and politics.
Download or read book Karakoram written by Steve Swenson and published by Mountaineers Books. This book was released on 2017-04-01 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: • A memoir of adventure in one of the most dangerous places on the planet • The Karakoram is home to K2, the deadliest of the world’s 8,000-meter peaks The best mountain climbing in the world, Steve Swenson will tell you, is in the Karakoram. Swenson has been climbing in these mountains since 1980 and has a perspective on the land and its people like few others. A complex place, the Karakoram Range is located in Kashmir, a western Himalaya border region that has a long history of tension and conflict between China, India, and Pakistan, tensions that have only been magnified since 9/11. Over the course of more than thirty years climbing there, Swenson’s experiences have been laced with daunting challenges, exhilarating successes, and terrifying moments—caused by the risks inherent in alpine environments, as well as politics below spilling into the peaks above. In Karakoram: Climbing Through the Kashmir Conflict, Swenson writes evocatively of his naiveté on his first visit to Pakistan for an attempt on Gasherbrum IV, during which he faced the teeming, bewildering streets of Islamabad and new challenges of dealing with a confusing array of bureaucrats, hiring hundreds of porters desperate for work, as well as the business of attempting to climb a towering peak just shy of 8,000 meters. By 2015 when he invited climbers to join him on an attempt of K6, Swenson had become the old-hand; it was his familiarity with the region that got them through the planning, the trek, and the climb. Even as he managed a busy career and family at home, Swenson returned to the region more than a dozen times, making attempts on well known giants such as K2, Everest, and Nanga Parbat, as well as other, less familiar, peaks. While he often succeeded, he was often turned back, forced from the mountains by weather, failed logistics, fractured team dynamics, or unexpected skirmishes in the region. What drew him, again and again, was that he always learned something new and forged strong bonds with his climbing partners, including Doug Scott, Alex Lowe, Steve House, and others. Stronger still became his friendship with Haji Ghulam Rasool, a local Balti man whom he first met as a young cook in 1984. Rasool and other Pakistanis have served as Swenson’s window on this restive region, revealing how territorial conflicts can affect not just international climbing expeditions, but also the day-to-day livelihood of the local people. Karakoram is Swenson’s personal story of adventure in one of the most dangerous mountain environments on the planet. His love of climbing led him to these summits; his deep respect for the rugged landscapes and local people inspire his return. • A memoir of adventure in one of the most dangerous places on the planet • The Karakoram is home to K2, the deadliest of the world’s 8,000-meter peaks The best mountain climbing in the world, Steve Swenson will tell you, is in the Karakoram. Swenson has been climbing in these mountains since 1980 and has a perspective on the land and its people like few others. A complex place, the Karakoram Range is located in Kashmir, a western Himalaya border region that has a long history of tension and conflict between China, India, and Pakistan, tensions that have only been magnified since 9/11. Over the course of more than thirty years climbing there, Swenson’s experiences have been laced with daunting challenges, exhilarating successes, and terrifying moments—caused by the risks inherent in alpine environments, as well as politics below spilling into the peaks above. In Karakoram: Climbing Through the Kashmir Conflict, Swenson writes evocatively of his naiveté on his first visit to Pakistan for an attempt on Gasherbrum IV, during which he faced the teeming, bewildering streets of Islamabad and new challenges of dealing with a confusing array of bureaucrats, hiring hundreds of porters desperate for work, as well as the business of attempting to climb a towering peak just shy of 8,000 meters. By 2015 when he invited climbers to join him on an attempt of K6, Swenson had become the old-hand; it was his familiarity with the region that got them through the planning, the trek, and the climb. Even as he managed a busy career and family at home, Swenson returned to the region more than a dozen times, making attempts on well known giants such as K2, Everest, and Nanga Parbat, as well as other, less familiar, peaks. While he often succeeded, he was often turned back, forced from the mountains by weather, failed logistics, fractured team dynamics, or unexpected skirmishes in the region. What drew him, again and again, was that he always learned something new and forged strong bonds with his climbing partners, including Doug Scott, Alex Lowe, Steve House, and others. Stronger still became his friendship with Haji Ghulam Rasool, a local Balti man whom he first met as a young cook in 1984. Rasool and other Pakistanis have served as Swenson’s window on this restive region, revealing how territorial conflicts can affect not just international climbing expeditions, but also the day-to-day livelihood of the local people. Karakoram is Swenson’s personal story of adventure in one of the most dangerous mountain environments on the planet. His love of climbing led him to these summits; his deep respect for the rugged landscapes and local people inspire his return.
Download or read book Men Against the Clouds written by Richard Lloyd Burdsall and published by . This book was released on 1935 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Last Step Legends Lore written by Rick Ridgeway and published by Mountaineers Books. This book was released on 2014-02-14 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: CLICK HERE to download a sample from The Last Step * A mountaineering classic * Conflict, hardship, endurance, triumph -- it's all here in Ridgeway's extraordinary story In September 1978, Rick Ridgeway, Jim Wickwire, Lou Reichardt and John Roskelley stood atop K2, the first Americans ever to achieve this victory. Under the leadership of Jim Whittaker, they and their teammates had spent 67 days on the mountain, nearly all of them above 18,000 feet, where the stresses of high-altitude living, of monotonous food, of confinement in tiny tents for day after day of frustrating storms had worn them down to the core. The Last Step is Rick Ridgeway's inside story of this extraordinary expedition. It's about the people who, battered by the mountain and their isolation, overcame their individual fears, desire, and disappointments to work together to get somebodyñanybodyñto the top of K2. It's about the glorious success the team achieved, and about the perilous bivouac Jim Wickwire spent just below the summit without food, oxygen or shelter in temperatures of -40F.
Download or read book Lou Whittaker written by Lou Whittaker and published by The Mountaineers Books. This book was released on 1995-07-31 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: * The only biography of this Northwest's climbing hero * Features 15 color photos * Remarkable stories of climbs on K2, Kangchenjunga, and Denali * Features stories about Jim Wickwire, Pete Schoening, John Roskelley, Joe Kennedy, Jr., Peter Whittaker, and Willi Unsoeld Lou Whittaker has been one of America's most respected climbers for more than four decades. He began his illustrious mountaineering career as a teenager in the Pacific Northwest, climbing insatiably with his twin brother, Jim. He earned coveted spots on expeditions to formidable peaks in Alaska, the Himalaya, and the Karakoram, and went on to lead the expedition that made the first American ascent of the North Col on Everest in 1984. To Northwesterners, Lou's name is synonymous with Mount Rainier, where he has guided thousands to its summit since his own first ascent of the mountain at age 19. In Lou Whittaker: Memoirs of a Mountain Guide, Lou is at his storytelling best as he shares adventures and wisdom honed from the wild times of his youth to his more recent climbs with some of the country's best mountaineers. Tales of life as a young mountain rescuer, and later as mentor to others, are filled with his trademark humor, boundless energy, and compassion. He weaves his simple and practical philosophy through memories of climbing with Jim Wickwire, Pete Schoening, John Roskelley, Joe Kennedy, Jr., and a host of other celebrities and VIPs. He recounts amazing episodes on Mount McKinley, K2, Everest, Kangchenjunga, and his beloved Mount Rainier. Evident and inspiring throughout are his love for climbing and for life -- even amidst the loss of friends and promising young proteges. When it comes down to dying, Lou says, "I want to know what it is like to have really lived."
Download or read book Nanda Devi written by John Roskelley and published by The Mountaineers Books. This book was released on 2000-09-01 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1976, John Roskelley joined an expedition to climb Nanda Devi, a 26,645-foot peak in India's remote northwest frontier. What unfolded during this climb was a story of strong emotion, conflicting ambitions, death and victory, desire and regret. This is the story of Willi Unsoeld, the expedition leader who supported the participation of his young daughter, who was named after the mountain they were climbing.
Download or read book Fallen Giants written by Maurice Isserman and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the first comprehensive history of Himalayan mountaineering in 50 years, the authors offer detailed, original accounts of the most significant climbs since the 1890s, and they compellingly evoke the social and cultural worlds that gave rise to those expeditions.
Download or read book The Last Man on the Mountain The Death of an American Adventurer on K2 written by Jennifer Jordan and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2011-08 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mountaineering.
Download or read book Mountains of the Middle Kingdom written by Galen A. Rowell and published by Random House (NY). This book was released on 1983 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is photojournalist Galen Rowell's acclaimed portrait of the mountain lands of China and Tibet -- a realm the Chinese call the "middle kingdom" between earth and sky, higher and more remote than anywhere else on earth. Rowell's text sets his own adventures in this exotic region against a rich historical and cultural background, recreating the exploits of and describing the dramatic changes that recent years have wrought on Chinese life and society. From the palaces of Lhasa to the pristine strongholds of the snow leopard, the 85 splendid color photographs and compelling narrative map a geography that stretches the bounds of imagination. "From the Trade Paperback edition.
Download or read book One Mountain Thousand Summits written by Freddie Wilkinson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2010-07-06 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The account of one of the deadliest and most mysterious tragedies in mountaineering history-the 2008 K2 disaster. One Mountain Thousand Summits reveals the true story of the K2 tragedy that claimed the lives of eleven men. Based on his numerous trips to Nepal and in-depth interviews he conducted with the survivors, the families of the lost climbers, and the Sherpa guides whose heroic efforts saved the lives of at least four climbers, Freddie Wilkinson's narrative uncovers what actually occurred on the mountain, while delivering a criticism of the mainstream press's incomplete coverage of the event, and an insightful look into the lives of the six Sherpas who were involved.
Download or read book No Shortcuts to the Top written by Ed Viesturs and published by Crown. This book was released on 2007-11-27 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • This gripping and triumphant memoir from the author of The Mountain follows a living legend of extreme mountaineering as he makes his assault on history, one 8,000-meter summit at a time. “From the drama of the peaks, to the struggle of making a living as a professional climber, to the basic how-tos of life at 26,000 feet, No Shortcuts to the Top is fascinating reading.”—Aron Ralston, author of Between a Rock and a Hard Place and subject of the film 127 Hours For eighteen years Ed Viesturs pursued climbing’s holy grail: to stand atop the world’s fourteen 8,000-meter peaks, without the aid of bottled oxygen. But No Shortcuts to the Top is as much about the man who would become the first American to achieve that goal as it is about his stunning quest. As Viesturs recounts the stories of his most harrowing climbs, he reveals a man torn between the flat, safe world he and his loved ones share and the majestic and deadly places where only he can go. A preternaturally cautious climber who once turned back 300 feet from the top of Everest but who would not shrink from a peak (Annapurna) known to claim the life of one climber for every two who reached its summit, Viesturs lives by an unyielding motto, “Reaching the summit is optional. Getting down is mandatory.” It is with this philosophy that he vividly describes fatal errors in judgment made by his fellow climbers as well as a few of his own close calls and gallant rescues. And, for the first time, he details his own pivotal and heroic role in the 1996 Everest disaster made famous in Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air. In addition to the raw excitement of Viesturs’s odyssey, No Shortcuts to the Top is leavened with many funny moments revealing the camaraderie between climbers. It is more than the first full account of one of the staggering accomplishments of our time; it is a portrait of a brave and devoted family man and his beliefs that shaped this most perilous and magnificent pursuit.
