Death Zone


Matt Dickinson - 1997
    Ten expeditions from around the world were preparing for their summit push, gathered together to try for mountaineering's ultimate prize. Twenty-four hours later, eight of those climbers were dead, victims of the most devastating storm ever to hit Everest. On the North face of the mountain, a British expedition found itself in the thick of the drama. Against all odds, film-maker Matt Dickinson and professional climber Alan Hinkes managed to battle through hurricane-force winds to reach the summit. In Death Zone, Matt Dickinson describes the extraordinary event that put the disaster on the front cover of Time and Newsweek. The desperate attempts of teams on the southern side of the mountain, fatal errors that led to the deaths of three Indian climbers on the North Ridge and the moving story of Rob Hall, the New Zealand guide who stayed with his stricken client, and paid with his life. Based on interviews with the surviving climbers and the first-hand experience of having lived through the killer storm, this gripping non-fiction book tackles issues at the very heart of mountaineering. Death Zone is an extraordinary story of human triumph, folly and disaster.

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


Jennifer Jordan - 2010
    Born into vast wealth yet uneasy with a life of leisure, Dudley Wolfe, of Boston and Rockport, Maine, set out to become the first man to climb K2, the world’s second-highest mountain and, in the opinion of mountaineers, an even more formidable challenge than Mt. Everest. Although close to middle age and inexperienced at high altitude, Wolfe, with the team leader, made it higher than any other members of the expedition, but he couldn’t get back down. Suffering from altitude sickness and severe dehydration, he was abandoned at nearly 25,000 feet; it would be another sixty-three years before the author discovered his remains.

World's Worst Crimes: An A-Z of Evil Deeds


Charlotte Greig - 2012
    From the Woman in the Box and the Online Murderer to the Düsseldorf Vampire and the House of Horror, this book delves into every major category of crime, sifting through the evidence to present a grisly, compelling, and blood-spattered history of the worst crimes ever committed.

The Summit: How Triumph Turned To Tragedy On K2’s Deadliest Days


Pat Falvey - 2013
    Within 28 hours, K2 had exacted a deadly toll: 11 lives were lost in a series of catastrophic accidents.Attracting a climbing elite and standing at 8,611 metres on the Pakistan-China border, K2 is known as the ‘Mountaineer’s Mountain’ because of its extreme technical challenges, its dangerously unpredictable weather and an infamous and hazardous overhanging wall of ice known as the Serac.Snow-bound at Base Camp for weeks on end and increasingly despairing of their prospects of success, an unexpected weather window gave the climbers the opportunity they were waiting for. In their collective desire to reach the summit, seven expeditions agreed to co-ordinate their efforts and share their equipment. Triumph quickly turned to tragedy, however, when a seemingly flawless plan unravelled with lethal consequences. Over the course of three days, a Nepalese Sherpa called Pemba Gyalje, along with five other Sherpas, was at the centre of a series of attempts to rescue climbers who had become trapped in the Death Zone, unable to escape its clutches and debilitated by oxygen deprivation, chronic fatigue, delirium and a terrifying hopelessness. The tragedy became a controversy as the survivors walked from the catastrophe on the mountain into an international media storm, in which countless different stories emerged, some contradictory and many simply untrue.Based on Pemba Gyalje’s eye-witness account and drawing on a series of interviews with the survivors which were conducted for the award-winning documentary, The Summit (Image Now Films and Pat Falvey Productions, 2012), The Summit: How Triumph Turned to Tragedy on K2’s Deadliest Days is the most comprehensive account of one of modern-day mountaineering’s most controversial disasters.

Everest the Cruel Way


Joe Tasker - 1981
    Their goal was to reach the summit via the infamous West Ridge, to climb it without the aid of supplementary oxygen and to do it in winter, at the time of year when the Himalayan climate is at its worst. On 30 January 1981 Joe Tasker and Ade Burgess stood on the crest of the West Ridge of the mountain, at a height of 24,000 feet. Below them were their companions, some exhausted, some crippled by illness, all virtually incapacitated. Further progress was impossible. The expedition retreated. Everest the Cruel Way is Joe TaskerOCOs story of this attempt to climb the highest mountain on earth ? a climb which proved too much for even a group of BritainOCOs finest mountaineers. First published in 1981, and available now for the first time as an ebook, TaskerOCOs epic account of the Everest West Ridge expedition vividly describes experiences which no climber had previously encountered or endured ? and in doing so Tasker weaves a gripping narrative, not only of one manOCOs quest to climb Everest but of the whole challenge of what motivates men and women to search for conquests hitherto unachieved. Joe Tasker was one of BritainOCOs best mountaineers. He was a pioneer of lightweight, Alpine-style climbing in the Greater Ranges and had a special talent for writing. He died, along with his friend Peter Boardman, high on Everest in 1982 while attempting a new and unclimbed line. Both men were superb mountaineers and talented writers. The literary legacy of Tasker and Boardman lives on through the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature, established by family and friends in 1983 and presented annually to the author or co-authors of an original work which has made an outstanding contribution to mountain literature. For more information about the Boardman Tasker Prize, visit: www.boardmantasker.com"

The Second Death of George Mallory: The Enigma and Spirit of Mount Everest


Reinhold Messner - 2000
    To Messner, and to thousands of others, Mallory’s attempt—whether or not it succeeded—remains the greatest exploit in the annals of mountain climbing. Though Mallory’s body was finally found, we have lost, Messner believes, the spirit that guided him; summiting Everest has become merely a corporate challenge and a matter of technology, not a rendezvous with destiny.Using the British climber’s journals and letters, Messner thrillingly re-creates Mallory’s three assaults on Everest, including his final ascent. Here is both an investigation into the death of George Mallory and a deeply felt homage—to a mountain, to the spirit of an age, and to the man who inspired those who followed in his footsteps.

Climb: Stories of Survival from Rock, Snow, and Ice


Clint Willis - 1999
    Stories include Jon Krakauer's first-person look at the risks of climbing Mt. McKinley's West Buttress route, which has killed scores of climbers in recent years; Chris Bonington's classic account of the Annapurna expedition, which introduced technical rock climbing at high altitude; Tom Patey's hilarious profile of the great climber and even greater misanthrope Don Whilans, describing an attempt the two made on the Eiger North Face; and Rob Taylor's experience breaking a leg high on Africa's Mount Kenya.

Fiendish Killers: Perpetrators Of The Worst Possible Evil


Anne Williams - 2007
    Burke and Hare, possibly two of Scotland's most gruesome inhabitants, who murdered people so that they could sell the cadavers. Albert Fish, a man so fiendish that his story makes Hannibal Lecter's exploits seem tame by comparison.You can read about these and many more who commit unspeakable crimes with complete disregard for their fellow human beings.

Touching My Father's Soul: A Sherpa's Journey to the Top of Everest


Jamling Tenzing Norgay - 2001
    As Climbing Leader of the famed 1996 Everest IMAX expedition led by David Breashears, Jamling Norgay was able to follow in the footsteps of his legendary mountaineer father, Tenzing Norgay, who with Sir Edmund Hillary was the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest, in 1953. Jamling Norgay interweaves the story of his own ascent during the infamous May 1996 Mount Everest disaster with little-known stories from his father's historic climb and the spiritual life of the Sherpas, revealing a fascinating and profound world that few -- even many who have made it to the top -- have ever seen.

Fiva: An Adventure That Went Wrong


Gordon Stainforth - 2012
    The route they targeted is called “Fiva” (pronounced “fever”). Poor judges of their own abilities, experience, and gear, they began the climb convinced they would return to their tent in time for afternoon tea.Within hours of starting the route, things went terribly wrong. Fiva is the story that Gordon Stainforth lived to tell, 40 years later. While it’s a tale that climbers will embrace, the adventure is one that all readers of non-fiction adventure will enjoy and find absorbing. It’s a story of innocence, brotherly love, youthful folly, and of danger, danger, and more danger.

Everest: It's Not About the Summit


Ellis Stewart - 2016
    Throughout it all Ellis Stewart shows a sense of humility and compassion sharing a heartfelt and emotional twenty year journey. From the streets of northern England through to the valleys and high mountains of Nepal, Stewart shared his story with thousands of followers on social media, winning over the hearts and minds of many. A ground swell of support sent Stewart to achieve his dream, not once but twice. Nobody could have anticipated the events that would follow. Events that would define Stewart in ways he couldn't possibly have imagined. Stewart is not your stereotypical mountaineer. Through the steps he took and his entrepreneurial spirit he was able to fund almost entirely the costs for two Everest expeditions without corporate assistance. In the summer of 2015 Stewart began to write his story of being caught up in these two tragic seasons on Everest. In this very book, he writes very candidly about not only his experiences on the mountain but also what drove and propelled him towards Everest in the first place. Not able to entice a publisher to take the project on, Stewart wouldn’t take no for an answer and decided to self-publish the book. After launching a massively successful crowdfunding campaign Stewart was able to pay the editing and printing costs to release this book as a paperback, which he did to rave reviews in late 2016. Due to popular demand Stewart launched another campaign to bring the book out in the hardcover format. Again this was a success. Everest: It’s not about the Summit, invites you into an intoxicating world, one where the margin between success and failure is brutally slim. This is a moving book with tragedy and commitment to a cause as a very central theme. It is a real story about real people. Whether it’s your usual genre of book or not doesn't matter as it's basically a cracking story. You don’t need to be a climber to enjoy this book at all. It has universal appeal and is a true inspirational cliff hanger for all. This book should be on the bookshelf of all active and armchair mountaineers alike. Amazon Review Epic. One of the best. This book is epic. It is up there and stands side to side with other mountaineering adventures like Into Thin Air, The Climb and Touching the Void. What this book does best though is convey the dreams and raw emotions of a man whose aspiration has always been to climb Everest. But it is also about adaptation to what life throws at you. If you are feeling down or dejected in anyway and want to be lifted. Read this book. Amazon Review I have just finished reading this book and I was blown away by Ellis’s story. I have read numerous other books about Everest expeditions and, like many other people, Jon Krakauer's account of the tragic1996 season started me on a trajectory to learn more about the trials and tribulations this mountain presents, from both a professional mountaineering perspective and as a commercial enterprise - albeit from the comfort of my sofa! The question one really has to ask when reviewing a book on a well documented subject is: “Why read this one?”. My answer is this: Many accounts of Everest expeditions tend towards ‘the macho’, ‘the personal achievement’ and ‘the surmounting of odds’ in terms of central narrative and descriptive style, whereas this is a deeply

Cold Wars: Climbing the Line Between Risk and Reality


Andy Kirkpatrick - 2011
    Pushing himself to new extremes, he embarks on his toughest climbs yet - on big walls in the Alps and Patagonia - in the depths of winter.

The Alaska Cruise Handbook: A Mile-by-Mile Guide


Joe Upton - 2005
    With the author's own wonderful Alaska stories and information on wildlife, native culture, landmarks, historical sites, shopping, and more, you won t miss a thing. Upton's Handbook traces the route used by most Alaska cruises, with maps and text keyed to a route numbering/navigational system that is frequently announced onboard, allowing the passenger to easily follow his ship s progress from Mile One. The wonderful illustrated maps and color photography throughout keep you informed throughout your journey, making a wonderful souvenir when it ends.

Should I Not Return eBook: The Most Controversial Tragedy in the History of North American Mountaineering!


Jeffrey Babcock - 2012
    What set their climb apart from those before it, and even those afterward, was a disaster of such magnitude that it became know as North America's worst mountaineering tragedy. Prior to July of 1967 only four men had ever perished on Denali, and then, in one fell swoop, Denali--like Melville s, Great White Whale, Moby Dick--indiscriminately took the lives of seven men. The brothers survive one danger after another: a terrible train accident, a near drowning in the McKinley River, an encounter with a large grizzly, a 60 foot plunge into a gaping crevasse, swept away by a massive avalanche, and finally a climactic escape from the terror of 100 mph winds while descending from the summit. Should I Not Return is a one of a kind cliffhanger packed with danger, survival under the worst conditions, and heroism on the Last Frontier s most treasured trophy--the icy slopes of Denali, North America s tallest mountain--Mount McKinley.

Moments of Doubt and Other Mountaineering Writings


David Roberts - 1986
    The articles are composed of three types: Adventures (Roberts' own climbs and outings), Profiles (other adventurers), and Reflections (meditative essays about the meaning of the whole business). Roberts ranges the globe (Africa, Alaska, New Guinea) and introduces unique personalities (Reinhold Messner, John Roskelly, Don Sheldon). He also recounts how his own love of writing and the useless pastime of climbing combined to produce the bread and butter of his career today.Popular with audiences far beyond active mountaineers, Roberts sets himself this challenge: "For me, the abiding puzzle of adventure writing lies in keeping, on the one hand, a sense of proportion about the absurdity of most of our antics in the outdoors, while staying alert, on the other, to the majesty of spirit which at their best those antics demonstrate."RUNNING TIME ⇒ 10hrs. and 39mins.©1986 David Roberts (P)2020 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.