Duchy K2. Epicka historia zdobycia szczytu

by Mick Conefrey, Krzysztof Krzyżanowski (Translator)

K2 - bezimienna góra, która cieszy się ponurą sławą. Wznoszący się na 8611 metrów n.p.m. szczyt budzi wśród ludzi gór szczególną fascynację. To największe możliwe wyzwanie. Trzeba pokonać niezwykle strome zbocza, ekstremalną wysokość, odosobnienie oraz nieprzewidywalną pogodę. Na szczyt K2 dotarli nieliczni, wielu straciło życie podczas wspinaczki. Nowoczesne technologie sprawiły, że jest ona odrobinę bezpieczniejsza, ale Góra Gór wciąż zbiera tragiczne żniwo. I wciąż przyciąga nowych śmiałków, którzy chcą zmierzyć się z obsesją na punkcie zdobycia tego szczytu.

Ta książka w wyjątkowo realistyczny i sugestywny sposób opowiada historię pierwszych prób wejścia na K2. Jest niezwykłym dokumentem, który powstał dzięki nieustępliwości i wytrwałości autora. Niepublikowane wywiady z żyjącymi członkami zespołów oraz ich rodzinami, fragmenty pamiętników i listów znajdujących się w archiwach rozsianych po całym świecie pozwoliły na odmalowanie atmosfery na Górze Mordercy, która wciąż pozostaje marzeniem wielu wspinaczy. Znajdziesz tu historię przesiąkniętą widmem śmierci, szaloną ambicją, tragedią i heroiczną odwagą. Karty tej znakomitej, rzetelnie napisanej, a przy tym trzymającej w napięciu książki wypełniają bohaterzy i marzyciele - to arcydzieło literatury górskiej.

K2. Góra, która nie ma imienia. Góra, która nie zna litości.

Genres: Nonfiction, Mountaineering, History, Adventure, Sports, Travel, Audiobook

376 pages, Paperback

First published April 7, 2015

About the author

Mick Conefrey is the author of the award-winning Adventurer’s Handbook and How to Climb Mont Blanc in a Skirt. An internationally recognised filmmaker, he has produced several BBC documentaries on mountaineering and exploration, including The Race for Everest. He lives in north Oxford with his family.

Reviews

[Ivana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Prakticky jednohubka, nemohla som sa od toho odtrhnut, kym som to nedocitala.

Dejiny dobyvania K2. Od prvych pokusov zaciatkom 20. storocia, cez neuspesne vypravy, ktore snad uspesnymi mohli byt, az po tu s velkym "V", ktora mala zozat vsetku slavu a namiesto toho sa stala zaciatkom dlhych bojov, sudov a celozivotnej zatrpknutosti viacerych ludi. Nechybaju ani tragedie modernej doby a zamyslenie sa nad zdolavanim K2.

Autor vychadza z dobovych clankov, knih, z roznych rozborov aj dennikov samotnych horolezcov a ostatnych ucastnikov expedicii ci ich potomkov.

Na nejaku hlbsiu recenziu by som si to asi musela nechat ulezat, neskor mozno napisem viac.
Je to naozaj dobre. Neviem nakolko k tomu prispel styl autora a nakolko stacil samotny pribeh, ale Conefrey si dal neskutocnu pracu so zbieranim materialu a dohromady to vsetko (pribeh, mravencia praca a aj literarne nadanie) dalo vyborne dielo.

[Marisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was AH-MAY-ZING. It was a totally random pick-up as someone had left it on the plane and I was hooked. (Sorry random person who may or may not have lost their book.) Conefrey does a fantastic job weaving in the history of K2 and building on it to explain the significance of K2 and the accomplishments of the climbers who made it. There was so much about the mountain that I had no idea about. This is the kind of book that sucks you in and is hard to put down once you get into the story.

I have read a decent number of climbing books and they risk getting repetitive, but “The Ghosts of K2” was still fresh and interesting the whole way through. I loved that Conefrey included an explanation of the controversy after summitting because it’s not always all rainbows after such an achievement. For those who are not mountaineers or hikers, you’ll still enjoy the read if you enjoy sports books or overcoming challenges!

Who should read it? Any fan of sports or books on major human achievement.

See all my reviews and more at Reading To Distraction

[Andrea Salayová · Rating 5 out of 5]

Veľmi zaujímavý pohľad na historicky prvé pokusy o zdolanie druhej najvyššej hory sveta - K2, ktorá však svojou náročnosťou Everest v mnohom prekračuje. Autor pútavým štýlom podáva najnovšie informácie o mnohých kontroverzných udalostiach po dosiahnutí vrcholu a napätí, ktoré panovalo medzi horolezcami v niekoľkých výpravách.

Okrem toho, že je kniha informačne na veľmi vysokej úrovni a čerpá priamo z denníkov účastníkov, mnoho udalostí autor opisuje s nadhľadom a humorne, čiže sa text číta veľmi rýchlo. Ak vás horolezectvo facsinuje tak ako mňa - alebo len máte chuť dozvedieť sa niečo nové o nie až tak veľmi známej časti svetovej histórie, určite dajte tejto knihe šancu.

5/5

[Aldi · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent read, well-written, well researched, well structured, and not overly sentimental. I didn’t know a lot about the early expeditions on K2, or indeed the 1954 one that achieved the first successful summit attempt, and this was fascinating. Like Everest, K2’s early history is populated by larger than life figures driven by obsession, ambition, and the mountaineering ethics of earlier eras. You get bizarre stories like that of Dudley Wolfe, a middle-aged socialite and relatively inexperienced climber, who in 1939 kept going up higher and higher on K2 but may not have actually known how to come down; you get mountaineering legends like The Belay, in which Pete Schoening held the lives of six climbers with his death grip on his ice axe. You get the weird, feverish obsession that seized entire nations that felt some particular tall peak on the other side of the world was somehow “theirs” to conquer first.

Sadly, you also get heaps of my absolutely least favourite part of mountaineering history, both decades-old and relatively recent: the part where something goes wrong on top of an 8000er, one of those places in the world practically designed for things to go wrong, and the aftermath devolves into a big mud-slinging, reputation-smearing campaign to apportion blame. Fun times.

In this regard, the 1954 (successful) Italian expedition strikes me as particularly absurd and sad; from the military nature of expedition member recruitment to the dictatorial style of Ardito Desio’s leadership, to the seeming lack of any genuine camaraderie among the team, it seems like kind of a grim, oddly joyless endeavour from start to finish, but the ensuing decades of acrimonious lawsuits and mud-flinging about who lied about what and who didn’t give or get enough recognition for which parts make it particularly unpleasant. I’m sure I’m not the only one who wishes Fritz Wiessner had managed to persuade Pasang Lama to make a successful push for the summit in 1939, or that Charlie Houston’s team had had just a bit more luck with the weather in 1953; but then, it's not like anyone actually "deserved" the summit of K2... as K2 continues to demonstrate by shrugging people right off it.

Absolutely riveting read.

[Sudhir Bharadhwaj · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb read ! Reads like a thriller whereas it's a book of history. Am so glad I picked up in Darjeeling during my vacation. Could not out it down. Meticulously researched , Mick conefrey tells a magical story about a mysterious mountain K2 and the people who dedicated their lives climbing it. Don't miss it!!

[Leo]

DNF at around 32 %. Its good but I have a lot of issues with the ebook I'm trying to read and it's very difficult to read. Might pick it back up if I find it somewhere else.

[Sneha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I knew K2 was deadly. But this deadly?
Hooked from start to finish.

[kaedin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gorlami (who gives a fuck if they ran out of oxygen before or after)

[Jurij Fedorov · Rating 5 out of 5]

1 THE BEAST AND THE PRINCE
8,5/10

Wow, this is great history. I like it! It’s early attempts at climbing K2 at the start of the 20th century. The European teams thought K2 would be easy to climb and didn’t think altitude sickness would even be a thing as they had zero knowledge about it yet. But K2 was far away from everything. It took hundreds of men just to carry equipment and food to the base camp. From there you had to do the climbing which was impossible with the equipment they had. They couldn’t even break the altitude record on K2. That’s how impossible it was. But once they tried it out and took some photos it became clear that there was no way up. Everest was still in Tibet and Nepal, areas Westerners were not welcome in, so that’s why K2 was the goal even though it was too hard to climb.

2 THE HARVARD BOYS
8/10

Second big expedition to climb K2 lead by Charles Houston in 1938. This time it’s rich Americans as you need to pay for everything yourself. They plan an expedition to plan an attack for a new team next year or maybe even climb K2. They reach far up, but at soon as they hit the death zone they stop. And that was only 2 climbers, the rest couldn’t even make it there. This all seems impossible. They are careful and no one dies which is huge! These careful expeditions are great. No one is even in any great danger. They also set some altitude records during these 2 trips.

3 A CLIMBING PARTY
8/10

The Fritz Wiessner climbing story is the most proper one for a climbing book. This is an actual trial with many people getting hurt. Fritz was allowed to try the climb in 1939 as the Polish team who got the go ahead for that season dropped out. Back then they only allowed 1 team per season. He couldn't get the best climbers as many had climbed last season and others did other stuff. So he found second rank climbers and a bit older richer people. It didn’t turn out well. K2 broke them all. Injuries, sickness, frostbites. Fritz raced up and down to create the 9 camps. Only some Sherpas could hang on properly. It’s a one-man climb, but you need camps and equipment. And Fritz refused to use any technology so they didn’t have walkie-talkies. In storms people just sat in tents for days doing nothing.

4 HIGH AMBITION
10/10

Hmmmmmmmmmmm…

Spectacular. Fritz was the guy who was left to die on K2! I know this story. I didn’t put 2 and 2 together. This is proper drama. The Sherpas didn’t hear anyone shouting back down to them so they figured Fritz, another Sherpa and the aristocrat Dudley all died already. Sherpas of course take the fancy sleeping bags down with them, cut up the tents and spread the food around in the snow. If no one is coming down why keep it clean and ready? Fritz is forced to climb down to base 2 from base 9! An enormous task, but he makes it. Dudley stays in camp 7 where he has been alone for a long time as he was told Fritz just needed to go a bit down to get extra food and then they together could summit. Dudley is not a climber, but extra rest would help him gain the needed energy. But of course there is no food in any higher up camp and now they are at the bottom with a millionaire stuck on top and Fritz is totally spent. The carrier team is now also arriving to the mountain taking them back to the West. Sherpas sent up after Dudley and Dudley himself are never seen again.

5 THE FALLOUT
8,5/10

I like this. 2 of Fritz's friends write a book about him. They have a chapter where they point out that altitude sickness may have made Fritz take bad decisions. They now know how the brain works in those altitudes as you can even conduct experiments in chambers. He gets angry as he thinks it played no role. They scrap the book. But soon the man who was blamed for taking down the tents sends them his K2 diary where it is revealed that he didn't do this. Another guy did. The book now turns into an attack on Fritz. He was initially right after the expedition called a hard German and a bad leader. Later the legendary climb got the limelight and he became more respected. Now he's called out yet again. From 1939 till his death he did get newfound fame in the climbing community for still working as a guide and helping newcomers. Many tried to defend him, but his personality is too much.

6 UNFINISHED BUSINESS
8/10

Charles Houston led the 1938 expedition to look at routes Fritz could take next year. Now he returns in 1952 with a bigger and much better team of high IQ experts. They know more, they have modern WW2 developed clothes and technology like walkie-talkies and warm clothes. The team is very carefully selected with professors and high IQ people. The main issue is that Pakistan is now a country. So they can't use the amazing Indian Sherpas. They have to use regional workers and it's not the same quality. On the way much gets stolen constantly. Sherpas did most of the work in 1939 alongside a single man, Fritz. Now the Caucasians have to do 10 times more work it seems. We don't know yet.

7 TEAM WORK
9/10

Of course now they can communicate between camps. So they can plan everything and know where everyone is. This makes everything extra safe. The porters don't go above a certain limit either. So you have Americans doing everything higher up. They use experimental tents that can't handle the storms and they can't even light the stoves to eat or drink as it's too windy.

Charles is not in great shape. Fritz could have planned a push himself, but Charles didn't think it would require much ability so he didn't even train for it. You do need perfect weather to climb K2 and they are still waiting for many days in a row where they can climb. It's a waiting game as always and most often you lose it unless you take some huge risks. As Art gets a blood clot in his leg, getting him down is now the main goal. You have likely seen the photo of him falling down outside his tent. It's iconic.

I think they should have been in better shape and have greater altitude experience. Sherpas would be ideal too. Besides this there are no huge mistakes. Oxygen could help them keep warm and fit, but they couldn't afford it. With Charles in bad shape you also fully rely on random climbers to push themselves to the limit. Which is frankly silly as they didn't come here to die. Where will the motivation come from?

8 MAN DOWN
8/10

They try to get Art down, but it's impossible. He can't walk. An avalanche hits them and injures the group. A single man saved them all by holding them on the rope via his ice axe. Luckily Art is dragged down and dies so now they stand a chance.

The problem here is even trying to get Art down. They should have let him die. It was a suicide mission to even plan anything more. I also feel like the mission overall is fairly strong. It's actually avalanches and storms causing harm, not just stupidity. This team could have made it if they were extremely lucky with the weather for 2 months in a row. That's not K2. But at times it can be. And this team was ready to take the chance if given unlike the last 2 teams that stood no chance even in perfect weather.

Maybe the short time they gave themselves ruined it all. They didn't have enough food to last storms. They didn't take bad weather into account and planned for perfect weather only.

9 THE OLD ROAD
8,5/10

The Italian expedition next year is something else. Teams from all over the world want to climb K2 now as they have more money post WW2 and know they can make it with good weather. But Italians have a good relationship with the newfound Pakistan so they are allowed up. The plan is 8 times more expensive than the American one last year. It's hundreds of oxygen bottles, tons of food, hundreds of porters. It's huge. So huge that they even leave snow goggles behind on the trip to save weight and don't have tens for the porters making many unable to move on. Terrible planning by the dictatorial leader who left behind the best climber in Italy to be the lone dictator. The plan is to put up 4 miles of rope and huge camps everywhere. And then have extra months to climb it. The good thing is that the plan is so expensive and huge that even big mistakes this time around can be overcome. It's not like the other times where you needed perfect weather for basically 2 months in a row to get anywhere.

10 THE FLOWERS OF ITALY
8/10

The most powerful climber dies. A WW2 vet. And it's low on the mountain and suddenly.

They have hundreds of oxygen bottles. But at the end they use just 2. 2 climbers up top are randomly there and heroically climb to the top. Their oxygen runs out and they get frostbitten fingers and barely make it down alive just by sheer luck by falling down places where this doesn’t lead to deadly falls. The 2 who brought up oxygen bottles slept on the bare mountain in the death zone. The local porter has frostbitten toes. The leader is still in base camp. This was extreme luck. Just 2 oxygen bottles made it possible and just barely. Italy rejoices. It's huge news there. In the rest of the world Everest last year was the big story, not this.

11 THE SPOILS OF VICTORY
8/10

They celebrate the climb in Italy. It's a bit deal, but it also feels a bit small. The leader is greedy and wants the leftover money for his science. The alpine club is irritated with him for it. The leader is also criticized and as he is arrogant and doesn't write much about his experience he gets plenty of undefended attacks.

It also takes 2 months to reveal who actually climbed the mountain which makes the media and readers a bit tired of the story. One of the climbers who summited sues to get the money from a K2 movie. Embarrassing. He of course loses after 4 years. Overall it's all drama. It's not like Everest. Rather they climbed the mountain despite the leader. And it all becomes clear pretty fast. The little Mussolini as they nicknamed him in the climbing group.

12 THE BASE LIE?
7/10

The 2 climbers who summited K2 and the leader tell a specific story about how it happened. But the greatest climber in the world who made it all possible by dragging up 2 oxygen bottles says they lied. He says they didn't run out of oxygen on the way up. The Italian Alpine Club in 2004 agrees with him. But this author says he is wrong. I actually think that author is correct. He has to be because lying about this makes no sense. They would want to be precise and agree on everything if they made up a lie. Instead the 2 climbers have a bit different stories. If they had lied together they wouldn't name different places or where their oxygen ran out. They would agree on one place and one time. Yet they are clueless about times and places.

I love such detective work and bickering. But here the author does something that ruins many other mountaineering books, he is repetitive. The chapter is a bit dry. The style in the book is already fact focused so this is a bit much. But it's still good.

Epilogue: Living up to Your Name?
8/10

The author mentions his 2000 BBC documentary about all these stories. Which frankly is what made me like the book. If I hadn't seen the doc I would likely be way more lost. Books are hard!

The chapter is about K2 and the other big stories there. Like the disaster 2008 season with 13 deaths on the mountain. K2 is historically probably right after Everest. It's too hard to really invite most beginners and not the highest mountain either so you will often not have as many ropes or guides on it which makes it harder.

The author also goes into how he interviewed people and who gave him diaries to study. Which kinda reveals his biases. While reading the book and conclusions it really felt like he liked and respected most the climbers. So even climbers who were hated by many he defended. I think he did try to avoid conflict when possible to err on the side of respect. Which is fine enough, but I feel like there is more drama behind the scenes that he maybe skipped to create a respectful book? Maybe not. The book is fantastic either way and since my only other source is his documentary and some short passages I read in other books I can't really critically question anything in the book.

My final opinion on the book

Well… it's okay… just kidding, it's an amazing book. It's one of the books you sit down and read and expect to be sorta dry and long, but then you feel a pull towards it. Just one more page, maybe 1 more chapter today. What happens next? The questions remain and I keep reading the book and even, amazingly, once picking it over movies that day even though I have ADHD and can't focus on books that well.

The writing style is direct with no jokes, personal statements, emotional points or any bias you can read directly. It's sorta a historical biography. But the author is such an amazing writer with such a clean style that it doesn't matter. He's clearly in the genius level of writing talent. A person who can write to sell and sell a lot. Obviously there are more personal and stronger styles, but for history books this is frankly top-tier. The lack of bias alone is spectacular and something I seldom see this clearly.

It's pretty interesting that I sorta picked the book randomly and just expected it to be an okay dry intro, yet it's now one of my favorite books of this year. My book year has been a bit medium. Last year was spectacular. This year I've read many, many duds as I picked books more randomly. And as this is not even an audiobook it took a bit of extra energy to open it. Finishing it wasn’t hard.

If you like exploration, mountaineering and polar exploration books with a single goal focus this is in your must-read pile already. K2 is a crucial part of human exploration and this is the intro to it. I'm trying my best to make everyone understand that this really is a book you should be happy to pick up. It's not just okay like many other such books. It's cleanly edited and all chapters go from A to B with no extra bullshit. Go read it.

[Lily Riesett · Rating 5 out of 5]

As good as, if not better than, Krakauer

[Amy Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a non-mountaineer, I came to this book with little to no knowledge of high altitude climbing, or of K2.

The book was recommended by the author Sarah Lotz in her excellent novel about Everest; 'The White Road' and, having read that, I wanted to know more about climbing and the history of some of the world's highest peaks.

This didn't disappoint. It's a well researched, thorough (without being too dense for the layperson) and fascinating account of the various expeditions to K2.

The audiobook (which I listened to) is well narrated with a nice pace for easy listening. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend to anyone wanting to know more about K2.

[Vojtech · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the end it was an interesting book, but I am not so much into mountaineering and sometimes the book went into too much detail, at least for my taste. It could be just perfect for mountain climbing nerds! The book was definitely becoming more and more interesting as it was progressing towards modern day. For casual readers my recommendation would be to stick with something a little bit more popular rather than as history-oriented as The Ghosts of K2 are.

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A workmanlike telling of the first ascent of K2 and the expeditions leading up to it. There is plenty of excitement, but by focusing more on the what and how than on the why, The Ghosts of K2 bypasses the insight into character and small group psychology that elevates the best adventure literature beyond the genre. Still a worthwhile choice for those who enjoy mountaineering tales.

[Ze Shen Chin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so well written that it feels like fiction. There is enough details on how the expeditions happened for me to be able to appreciate the whole process, but not too much that it becomes too technical.

[Zofia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Najpiękniejsza książka jaką przeczytałam w życiu. Po pierwsze góry wysokie. Karakorum. Po prostu kocham wszystko co z nimi związane. Po drugie sposób prowadzenia historii. Cudowne. Trzyma w napięciu do końca. Tłumaczy. Historia K2 jest tak bogata i tak barwna że nie sposób opisać słowami. Szczególnie zapadły mi w pamięć zespoły Charliego. To co działo się na górze w 53r. Śledziłam z zapartym tchem. Żyłam tymi historiami. Nie sa mo wi te. Wrócę pewnie do tej historii nie raz. Były łzy, śmiech i strach. Cudowne cytaty, zaplecze naukowe, nie sposób się nie wzruszyć. Zapamiętam na zawsze.
6/5
12/04/23

[Babur Khan (The Pukhtoon Bibliophile) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant
Brilliant
Brilliant

This was a random pick for me that turned out to be one of the most awesome books I've read recently.
The author does an amazing job at taking you along on those early attempts at conquering K2, the first successful ascent, the sad and disappointing drama that came with it, and how K2 remains the "mountaineer's mountain".

[Dagmar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Úžasná kniha. Na jedné straně baví nadšením a šampaňským u prvních výprav, na druhé Vás mrazí, když si vybírá svou krutou daň...

[Santhosh Nayak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing account on all the expeditions attempted to conquer K2 for the first time. Some of descriptions in the book still sends shiver down my spine.

[Lydia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this up on a whim in the library just because I happened to be sitting next to the mountaineering section and it’s fucking brilliant? Obviously it’s non fiction but it reads like a thriller! So fascinating. Big thanks to the universe for planting it for me to find!

[Vasilii Shapkin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book! Very constructive and informative.

[Elizabeth Stackpole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely thorough and engaging, and the best analysis of the Bonatti controversy I've read. Conefry's strength is his ability to balance historical fact, speculation and opinion, allowing the reader to analyze their own biases and understand the complexity of mountaineering in general. 4.5/5

[Koushik Mondal · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first experience of reading books on expedition was of 'Into thin Air' by John Krakauer earlier in 2019 and ever since I have compiled a list of books on expedition that I will read. Ghosts of K2 is a compliation of all the attempts to conquer the world's most deady mountain, K2.

The book traces the change in the way expeditions were led since early 1900s to modern day. We see the approaches of different expedition leaders in tracing a route to summit the savage mountain. It touches upon multiple narratives related to the formation of the team, the funding, the journey, the challenges and last but not the least the politics and rivalry among teams which stays on as popular anecdotes in the world of mountaineering.

It all started with British Occultist, Aleister Crowley and his friend Oskar Eckenstein, both having a penchant for adrenaline pump, to start the first expedition of K2 in early 1902.

"In those days, nobody had a clue about what it was going to be like. They thought they would go to the Himalayas and knock off K2 in a couple of days. But as the expedition proceeded, it started falling apart. Eckenstein, the leader, had a bad respiratory infection. Crowley had malaria and spent most of the time in his tent with a high fever. At one point he got so delirious, he started waving his revolver at other members of the team"

The next attempts were made by Duke of Abruzzi, after whom the now standard route of Abruzzi Spur is named. There were further reconnaissance attempts by Charles Houston, then an American expedition led by the German stoic mountaineer Frtiz Weissner, the pioneer of the 'New Standard' of free climbing. His expedition failed miserably having come close to 700 feet from the mountain. There were questions raised on his leadership because of death of Dudley Wolfe high above 8000 metres and the fact that he went on to climb alone whereas the rest of his team lay far below at the base camp. There were multiple miscommunication on that expedition that costed lives. While climbing down to the advanced base camp 4 to collect oxygen tanks, he had to come all the way down as his team members had stripped the whole path of all tanks fearing him to be dead alone, above. That was 1939.

Houston returned again in 1953 but did no better than Weissner in 1939. Gale storms heavily struck their progress and luck and they had to return back. In 1954, after half a century of failed attempts, finally the Italian duo, Lino Lacedelli and Achille Compagnoni succeeded in climbing to the summit of K2 via the Abruzzi spur. The expedition was laced with controversy despite the glory of finally having conquered the savage mountain. Facts about deliberately moving the final camp higher to 8100 metres to prevent younger Bonatti to summit by the duo was initially supressed by the Italian government. The books highlights the geopolitical angle of controversies in the early summit attempts as well.

[Screaming Into the Void About Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know absolutely no one in my circle cares about mountaineering (my strange and obsessive niche interest) but ayyeee can't stop won't stop.~

This was absolutely fascinating and almost an entirely new story for me. The only parts that I was at all really familiar with is that a group of Italians made the first ascent of K2, but I didn't know the story really at all, and the part where the author went on a brief tale about the 2008 K2 disaster. I've read an entire book and watched a documentary on that one. The rest of this book was entirely new to me and it was a ride! The history of K2 is so fascinating, especially how infamous occultist Alister Crowley was among the first people to try and scale the peak as far back as 1902. The depictions of the various expeditions to try and ultimately fail to ascend were very contentious and fascinating. The drama alone is worth the read. Highly recommend if anyone out there in my universe has any interest whatsoever. Of all the climbing books I've read, this is absolutely among the best. Right up there with Into Thin Air in terms of pure page turning power.

[Dale Lehman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although not a climber myself (except for having done a modest amount of what's called "scrambling" in the Sierra Nevada a long time ago), I've had a longstanding interest in Mt. Everest. But I'd never read anything on K2 prior to this book. Conefrey does a fine job of bringing the history of attempts to climb K2 to life. He also undertakes a reexamination of the claim, almost universally accepted by now, that Lino Lacedelli and Achille Compagnoni, the first climbers to reach the summit, intentionally tried to keep fellow climber Walter Bonatti from reaching the summit and lied about their use of oxygen. It seems that revisionist history may need to be revised yet again. In any event, this is a fine work for anyone interested in mountaineering history.

[Tricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 I really enjoyed this detailed history of the climbing of K2. I may not fully agree with the authors ultimate conclusions surrounding the Italians but it is definitely an intriguing argument. Very interesting book for anyone interested in the history of climbing in general or K2 in particular.

[Peter Longden · Rating 5 out of 5]

K2 is one of fourteen, so called 8000 metre mountains, all of which are in the two highest mountain ranges of the Himalaya and Karakoram. The first section of Conefrey’s fascinating book, deals with the early history of the worlds second highest mountain; explaining, for example, that the mountain was discovered in 1856 by Col. T.G. Montgomerie of the Survey of India, and was given the symbol ‘K2’ because it was the second peak measured in the Karakoram Range. This name has stuck though it is also known as ‘Mount Godwin Austen’ after the peak's first surveyor, Col. H.H. Godwin Austen, a 19th-century English geographer. A glacier near to K2 also bears his name.
At 8,611 m, 28,251 ft, K2 straddles the China-Pakistan border in the Karakoram range. On 31st July 1954 an Italian team of climbers became the first to reach the summit of K2, an achievement that became marred by controversy.
Achille Compagnoni Lino Lacedelli didn’t become household names or overnight sensations as a result of being the first summiteers on K2, not in the way that Hillary and Tensing had done for being first to stand on Everest’s summit a year earlier. This is because the team had made an agreement not to announce which climbers stepped onto the summit first until well after the mountain had been climbed. Conefrey points out in the book that ‘climbed’ is used not ‘conquered’, when referring to the achievement on K2 as there is a huge distinction as can be understood from the figures of the numbers of climbers killed compared to those who summit: a total of 66 people have died from 284 attempts. Second highest mountain, K2 is also the worlds second deadliest mountain. The deadliest mountain in the world is a specific ascent of Annapurna, another peak in the Himalayas. The route is so deadly because of an extremely steep face; and, astonishingly, 58 people have died from just 158 attempts. It has the greatest fatality rate of any ascent in the world. In October 2014 at least 43 people died in snowstorms and subsequent avalanches, making this Nepal's deadliest trekking disaster.
That said about Annapurna, K2 is known as the ‘Savage Mountain’ after climber George Bell told reporters: "It's a savage mountain that tries to kill you" after an expedition in the 1950s.
The book paints a measured picture of the draws and dangers of the mountain. It is a beautiful mountain with its iconic pyramidal peak when seen from a distance. It also has he reputation of being the hardest mountain to climb being less accessible to reach for climbing teams and being steeper overall making the setting of camps more difficult in addition to, in particular, the steepness of the final summit approach. All of these factors make the mountain more appealing to climbers who wish to pit their skills against the hardest of mountains.
The book is well-researched and, at the time of its release in 2015, included a more up-to-date account of the 1954 ascent following more information becoming available. What Conefrey has produced is a volume of gripping stories of human endeavour, achievement, failure and tragedy, with vivid narration brought to life with anecdotes drawn from some of the climbers own personal diaries, making it an excellent addition to the library of mountaineering literature.

[Jeremy Moore · Rating 3 out of 5]

My review of the first 3/4 of this book: It's good. I've read a number of books about K2 already, and this book added very little to what I already knew, but it was all in one place, ordered chronologically, and added a little detail. If you don't know a lot about K2 and are interested in learning, I think this would be a great book for you - although, as a record of the expeditions from the beginning until the first successful summit, this book doesn't have the more recent stories that K2 is so famous for. 4 stars.

My review of the final 1/4 of this book: Uninteresting. Look, I get it: the aftermath of the first successful summit has to be discussed, and the author is right that it's sad such an achievement was quickly overshadowed by bickering. I don't think the author should have left that out. And given that history had apparently sided with the accuser, I also understand the author feeling the need to 1) outline the accusations 2) outline the rebuttal to those accusations 3) outline why everyone decided to side with the accuser and 4) ultimately weigh in and "clear the names" of the accused. But this was 2 hours of bored eye rolling for me.
This wasn't even a top tier Mountain Mystery (no one died, and it wasn't a question of if they summited). Some guy felt slighted that his contribution to the summit effort was excluded from the narrative, and decided to come after the summit team - but by claiming that they were lying about when they ran out of oxygen? Who cares!? I've never bought with 100% confidence the reports of altitude, timing, or events from climbers who are exhausted, breathing thin air, and focused on other things anyway.
And when we were finally done reading about accusations and rebuttals, and I finally thought it was over, here comes the author with the "let me tell you what I'm confident actually happened", only to bring out more opinions and subjective evidence anyway. All over a distinction that shouldn't have mattered. Boooo.
When the entire time, I kept thinking about the fact that the summit pair brought a tent that wasn't big enough for their support climbers and pitched it where their support climbers couldn't find it - and the support climbers didn't bring their own tent and had to make an incredibly dangerous bivouac - that is an accusation I would love to have learned more about. 2 stars.

In short: I ultimately agree with the decisions the author made, given that it was a book about the first ascent of K2. But I think the first ascent as a story of an expedition (not as an achievement) is not interesting enough to be the apex of a book, and definitely wasn't worth listening to all the aftermath. Only read this book if you're really, truly interested in the gritty details of the history of K2.

[Cassandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every once in a while I get horribly obsessed with mountains and the insane people who climb them, for me it's always been K2 that drew my interest the most. Conefrey writes in a way that's both historically accurate and entertaining, my basic knowledge of mountain climbing helped me with some of the terms but a lot I had to quickly google (I learned what a crampon was so there's that). The stories of the failed climbs are probably the most interesting, especially the 2 failed attempts of Charlie Houston, who in my opinion, would've been the perfect person to finally reach the summit.

I enjoyed all the dry facts of the book, the list of the various different foods each expedition took had me laughing (why would you bring alcohol on a deadly climb in the death zone? Only mountaineers could answer) and fascinated by just how different each person saw the mountain itself. The final controversy regarding it left me a bit disappointed in that it was the Italian team that conquered it, it seems that K2 finally fell to humankind only to be shrouded again in misinformation and bitter debate. But then you have to wonder has mountain climbing ever been free of debate? We argue about whether using oxygen counts as cheating, whether climbing it via different routes is harder or easier, we wonder if the usage of "mountain triage" isn't just us becoming selfish (which I say it depends on your character), etc. Mountains may be pure, but the physical act of climbing them not so much. And yet here I am in a temperature controlled room with a cup of coffee reviewing a book about a sport I would never engage in and can only see through the lens of a camera or a climber's words. But it's an interesting book written about an interesting topic that I always come back to every now and again.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read a couple books about the 2008 disaster on K2, I decided I was acclimatized enough to go back to the origin story, and I was not disappointed. Actually goes back decades prior to 1954 first successful summit attempt by an Italian team to describe the often highly eccentric people who had made prior serious attempts and in some cases came quite close to the summit.

Author is a film documentary guy, and his research skills shine through. Does a deep dive for instance into trying to sort out an argument among the protagonists about what went down between the summit team in 1954 vs. the last group of support climbers who were carrying oxygen bottles up to them for the final stretch, ending up having to bivouac in the death zone in horrible weather conditions before descending. Can't say that I was previously fascinated by the deets of 1950's oxygen cannisters and what they might tell us about plausibility of various timelines, but author's writing ability and logical analysis pulled me into it.

Does a great job of illustrating how much of a role good fortune plays [on top of skill, emotional intelligence needed to work with people you may never have met before in life-or-death crises as well as months-long tedious hard work of getting to base camp, waiting out storms, etc.] in this kind of adventure.

All told, I'm not persuaded by what I read that I should go to K2, but I am fired up enough that I might just go out today and run this book back to the library despite their being one inch of snow on the ground. Each needs to pick their own challenge!

[Gelsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mick Conefrey's book accounting the early ascents of K2 is a straightforward description of the incidents, leading up to the eventual summit of K2 by the Italian team in 1954. It is an informative read, if you can ignore authorial comments such as "the danger was far from over" (228) that function only as cheap stylistic attempts to produce engaging writing. The nonfiction book lacks any thesis (not that one is necessary) throughout the descriptions of the ascents. Only once Conefrey has reached the apex of his book, and Lacedelli and Compagnoni have descended K2's summit, does he offer his own outlook on the Italian expedition. The chapter 'The Spoils of Victory' makes broad assumptions about Italians in general, and Conefrey spends the last two chapters examining, quite briefly, how the Italians later feuded over the truth of the climb. While the Italian team saw success, unlike the prior American teams led by Charlie Housten and Fritz Weissner, Conefrey glosses over the lifelong animosity which remained between and throughout those teams and instead recount the conflicts over the final moments of the Italian summit. The book's storytelling is expected, and one can be guaranteed that if Conefrey states '___ was born here on this date' that person will, within the next couple of paragraphs, meet an unfortunate end. Overall, an informative and easy read, but lacks the nuance of a thought-provoking historical narrative.