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.

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.

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: 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.

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.

K2, The Savage Mountain

K2, The Savage Mountain PDF Author: Norman Handy
Publisher: novum pro Verlag
ISBN: 3990487175
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 181

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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.

The Last Man on the Mountain: The Death of an American Adventurer on K2

The Last Man on the Mountain: The Death of an American Adventurer on K2 PDF Author: Jennifer Jordan
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393339971
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
Mountaineering.

The Last Step (Legends & Lore)

The Last Step (Legends & Lore) PDF Author: Rick Ridgeway
Publisher: Mountaineers Books
ISBN: 1594859361
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 452

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Book Description
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.

One Man's Climb

One Man's Climb PDF Author: Adrian Hayes
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1526745380
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
A deeply moving story of the beauty and brutality of life, and death, on the world’s most unpredictable and perilous mountain. Sitting just lower than Everest at 8,611 meeres above sea level on the China–Pakistan border, the Savage Mountain claims the lives of even the most experienced climbers. Alongside severe altitude, the weather is notoriously volatile and the climb relentlessly steep. A staggering one in four attempts result in death on the mountain. In One Man’s Climb, Adrian Hayes details an intensely personal account of his attempts to climb K2 – first in 2013 and again in 2014. Absorbing and self-reflective, his journey is as much a story of climbing a mountain as it is a testament to the human spirit’s ability to endure.

To the Greatest Heights

To the Greatest Heights PDF Author: Vanessa O'Brien
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982123788
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
"A memoir by Vanessa O'Brien, record-breaking American-British explorer, takes you on an unexpected journey to the top of the world's highest mountains"--