No Way Down: Life and Death on K2 - Hardcover

Bowley, Graham

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0061834785 ISBN 13: 9780061834783

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2010

Synopsis

Based on in-depth interviews with surviving climbers, sherpas, porters and family and friends, a reporter from the New York Times recreates the tragic 2008 K2 ascent that killed 11 climbers, severely injured two more and made headlines around the world. 40,000 first printing.

About this title

Review:

Riveting and powerful; an extraordinary story of an extraordinary tragedy. Reading No Way Down is the closest you can come to being on the summit of K2 on that fateful day (Sir Ranulph Fiennes)

A gripping hour-by-hour dissection of events in the Western Himalaya over three deadly days... a fitting shelfmate to the modern classic Into Thin Air (Brian Schofield Sunday Times)

Stories of heroism, sadness and extraordinary endurance against all the odds are woven into a thrilling drama (Christopher Hudson Daily Mail)

Unputdownable... a portrait of extreme courage, folly and loss, leavened by a small dose of survival' (Financial Times)

Artfully and assiduously pieces together an account of a fractious day in brutal real time. Fatality by fatality... devastating (New York Times)

A tour de force of a book...a triumph of storytelling (Associated Press)

Probably the best mountain-disaster memoir since Into Thin Air (Mail on Sunday)

One of the best books I've ever read. But take it to the beach at your peril - it's impossible to put down. Sunburn is guaranteed (Outdoor Science)

From the Back Cover:

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.

In this riveting work of narrative nonfiction, journalist Graham Bowley re-creates one of the most dramatic tales of death and survival in mountaineering history.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0061834785
• ISBN 13: 9780061834783
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 253