The Challenge of K2

The Challenge of K2 PDF Author: Richard Sale
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1844687023
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
K2 is a legend - one of the most demanding mountaineering challenges in the world and one of the most treacherous. Extreme, unpredictable weather and the acutely difficult climbing conditions test the technique, endurance and psychological strength of the most experienced mountaineers to the limit and often beyond. Many of the men and women who have sought to reach the summit have failed, often with tragic consequences - over 70 of them have died or disappeared. Yet this, the second highest mountain on Earth, continues to exercise for the worlds top mountaineers a special, and all too often lethal attraction. Richard Sales fascinating new book traces the climbing history of K2 over the last 150 years, he shows in graphic detail how it acquired this awesome reputation: it was during the first serious attempts on the summit in the 1930s and 1950s that K2 became known as the Savage Mountain.

The Challenge of K2

The Challenge of K2 PDF Author: Richard Sale
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1844687023
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 286

Get Book

Book Description
K2 is a legend - one of the most demanding mountaineering challenges in the world and one of the most treacherous. Extreme, unpredictable weather and the acutely difficult climbing conditions test the technique, endurance and psychological strength of the most experienced mountaineers to the limit and often beyond. Many of the men and women who have sought to reach the summit have failed, often with tragic consequences - over 70 of them have died or disappeared. Yet this, the second highest mountain on Earth, continues to exercise for the worlds top mountaineers a special, and all too often lethal attraction. Richard Sales fascinating new book traces the climbing history of K2 over the last 150 years, he shows in graphic detail how it acquired this awesome reputation: it was during the first serious attempts on the summit in the 1930s and 1950s that K2 became known as the Savage Mountain.

The Ghosts of K2

The Ghosts of K2 PDF Author: Mick Conefrey
Publisher: Oneworld Publications Limited
ISBN: 9781780745954
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
At 28,251 feet, K2 might be almost 800 feet shorter than Everest, but it is a far tougher proposition. Unlike Everest, there is no "Yak route" for commercial clients. It is hard climbing all the way from its base to its summit. K2 will kill you on the way up and kill you on the way down. Mick Conefrey tells the story of three extraordinary expeditions filled with riveting drama and unimaginable tragedy- Fritz Wiessener's controversial attempt of 1939, the disastrous American expedition of 1953, and the huge Italian expedition of 1954 on which K2 was first climbed. He captures the bold and eccentric characters - their friendships and rivalries, their guilt and betrayals. At the center of the narrative is Charlie Houston, who led the failed 1953 exhibition, who was forced to give up his ambition of ever reaching the summit, and who was haunted for the rest of his life by the ghosts of the world's most beautiful and lethal mountain.

K2

K2 PDF Author: Ed Viesturs
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0767932609
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
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.

Savage Summit

Savage Summit PDF Author: Jennifer Jordan
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061753521
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 497

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Book Description
Though not as tall as Everest, the "Savage Mountain" is far more dangerous. Located on the border of China and Pakistan, K2 has some of the harshest climbing conditions in the world. Ninety women have scaled Everest but of the six women who reached the summit of K2, three lost their lives on the way back down the mountain and two have since died on other climbs. In Savage Summit, Jennifer Jordan shares the tragic, compelling, inspiring, and extraordinary true stories of a handful of courageous women -- mothers and daughters, wives and lovers, poets and engineers -- who defeated this formidable mountain yet ultimately perished in pursuit of their dreams.

No Way Down

No Way Down PDF Author: Graham Bowley
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062002902
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
New York Times Bestseller “A refreshingly unadorned account of the true brutality of climbing K2, where heroes emerge and egos are stripped down, and the only thing achieving immortality is the cold ruthless mountain.” — Norman Ollestad, author of Crazy for the Storm In this riveting work of narrative nonfiction, New York Times journalist Graham Bowley re-creates one of the most dramatic tales of death and survival in mountaineering history—the 2008 K2 ascent that claimed the lives of eleven climbers In the tradition of Into Thin Air and Touching the Void, No Way Down is the harrowing account of the worst mountain climbing disaster on K2, second to Everest in height. . . but second to no peak in terms of danger. On August 1, 2008, no fewer than eight international teams of mountain climbers—some experienced, others less prepared—ascended K2, the world's second-highest mountain, with the last group reaching the summit at 8 p.m. Then disaster struck. A huge ice chunk came loose above a deadly three-hundred-foot avalanche-prone gully, destroying the fixed guide ropes. More than a dozen climbers—many without oxygen and some with no headlamps—faced the nearly impossible task of descending in the blackness with no guideline and no protection. Over the course of the chaotic night, some would miraculously make it back. Others would not. From tragic deaths to unbelievable stories of heroism and survival, No Way Down is an amazing feat of storytelling and adventure writing, and, in the words of explorer and author Sir Ranulph Fiennes, “the closest you can come to being on the summit of K2 on that fateful day.”

K2, The Savage Mountain

K2, The Savage Mountain PDF Author: Charles Houston
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1493050257
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
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.

K2: Triumph And Tragedy

K2: Triumph And Tragedy PDF Author: Jim Curran
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
ISBN: 1444778366
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
K2 is the second highest mountain in the world, at 8611 metres only a couple of hundred metres lower than Everest. It is one of the most unrelenting and testing of the worlds 8000-metre peaks. Jim Curran came to K2 as a climbing cameraman with an unsuccessful British expedition, but stayed on through the climbing season. This is his account of the dramatic events of that summer, a story of ambitions both achieved and thwarted on a mountain which all high-altitude climbers take the most pride in overcoming. In 1986 K2 took its toll of those ambitions. Curran vividly describes the moments that contribute to the exhilaration of climbing on the world's most demanding mountain, and he assesses the tragedy of that summer with compassion and impartiality.

K2

K2 PDF Author: Heidi Howkins
Publisher: National Geographic Society
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
The tales of a single mother who has climbed K2, just a little lower than Everest, but "steeper, tougher, and deadlier."--Jacket.

K2, The Savage Mountain

K2, The Savage Mountain PDF Author: Norman Handy
Publisher: novum pro Verlag
ISBN: 3990487175
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 213

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Book Description
This is the story of one man's travels through northern Pakistan, using Gilgit as a centre. You will be taken westward to the fascinating Kalash Valleys with a surviving unique culture, struggling to maintain their identity in the harsh and rugged mountains, bordering Afghanistan. The story continues to Baltistan and up through the Karakoram Mountains and the infamous Karakoram Highway that links the country to China via the Khunjerab Pass, the highest road border crossing in the world. The journey goes eastwards across the Deosai plateau which have an average elevation of 4,000m and the disputed areas of Jammu and Kashmir. Finally there is the ascent to base camp of K2, the world's second highest but most deadly of mountains.

K2

K2 PDF Author: John Barry
Publisher: Nicholson
ISBN:
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description