K2: Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain

K2: Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain
By Ed Viesturs with David Roberts
Broadway Books, 2009. 325 pp. Nonfiction

Ed Viesturs is the premier living American mountain climber. David Roberts is arguably the premier American climbing writer. Together they have assembled a somewhat lumpy but mostly fascinating history of climbing on K2, the second highest mountain in the world but much more difficult to climb than the taller Everest. Viesturs begins with his own attempts on K2--one successful, one not--then moves into the climbing history of the mountain. Attempts on K2 began in 1902 but no one reached the top until an Italian team succeeded in 1954. But what is more interesting is not who made it and who didn't, but the individual experiences and personalities of each team. The courage and compassion of the 1953 American teams has made their achievement legendary in climbing circles, even though they didn't summit, where the victorious Italian team's horrific treatment of each other has long tainted the climb itself. For every four climbers who have summited on K2, one has died, and while Everest has become practically a tourist destination, "wired" to the top, K2 remains "the Holy Grail of Mountaineering." Viesturs' book captures the essence of K2's mystique, if not some of the particulars. Fine reading for mountaineers and armchair adventurers alike.