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zarco_j's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
5.0
sincitylibrarian's review against another edition
5.0
This may be my favorite expedition account of the K2 books. There is something so wonderful about the collective voice that emerges from this account. The teamwork from the 1953 group and their remarkable dynamic is inspirational; despite the fact they did not make the summit.
ravuri's review against another edition
3.0
A positively riveting book about the failed 1953 expedition to summit K2, the second highest peak in the world and widely considered the most dangerous. What interested me was how little they knew about the mountain prior to its attempt. Nowadays, everyone has very prescribed paths up to a summit of an 8000m peak (which are the highest peaks in the world), and even though climbing these mountains is still remarkably difficult, it's nothing like going to these mountains and not knowing the path to summit. This was the position of the 8-man team in 1953, as no one had ascended K2 before, and it's astounding how high they got before disaster struck. What's probably more amazing was the teamwork involved in getting down from the mountain. It seems today the mountaineers are more interested in personal achievement, and stories abound of people being left for dead on a mountain, so it was nice to read about mountaineers risking life and limb in order to save teammates.
At times, the writing is not the greatest, and because of the teamwork theme throughout the book, there was little insight into the mindsets of the individual climbers. I liked the book somewhat less that Krakauer's "Into Thin Air", but I'm turning into a sucker for mountain-climbing books, so I enjoyed this one thoroughly.
At times, the writing is not the greatest, and because of the teamwork theme throughout the book, there was little insight into the mindsets of the individual climbers. I liked the book somewhat less that Krakauer's "Into Thin Air", but I'm turning into a sucker for mountain-climbing books, so I enjoyed this one thoroughly.
moltie's review against another edition
5.0
This book had everything I wanted. Not only was it a great book with actual diaries/stories but they also HAD LISTS OF TRAVEL PLANS, ECONOMICS AND EQUIPMENT. I was in geeky heaven.
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