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Everest the Cruel Way: The audacious winter attempt of the West Ridge
On 30 January 1981 Joe Tasker and Ade Burgess stood at 24,000 feet on the West Ridge of Mount Everest. Below them were their companions, some exhausted, some crippled by illness, all virtually incapacitated. Further progress seemed impossible.
Everest the Cruel Way is Joe Tasker's story of an attempt to climb the highest mountain on earth – an attempt which pushed a group of Britain's finest mountaineers to their limits. The goal had been to climb Mount Everest at its hardest: via the infamous West Ridge, without supplementary oxygen and in winter. Tasker's epic account vividly describes experiences that no climber had previously endured. Close up and personal, it is a gripping account of day-to-day life on expedition and of the struggle to live at high altitude.
Joe Tasker was one of Britain's 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.
Everest the Cruel Way is Joe Tasker's story of an attempt to climb the highest mountain on earth – an attempt which pushed a group of Britain's finest mountaineers to their limits. The goal had been to climb Mount Everest at its hardest: via the infamous West Ridge, without supplementary oxygen and in winter. Tasker's epic account vividly describes experiences that no climber had previously endured. Close up and personal, it is a gripping account of day-to-day life on expedition and of the struggle to live at high altitude.
Joe Tasker was one of Britain's 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.
168 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1981
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
July 28, 2023
This one didn't grab me. It only occasionally came to life with the human aspects of the climb and was too focused on the technical for me. Add to the bizarre grammar and punctuation in the version I read it didn't read coherently. Savage arena is much better and I'd recommend you start with that one of his.
July 11, 2021
Nuts – that’s what this book is.
As if climbing Everest isn’t hard enough, Joe Tasker tried to do it with a band of other incredibly brave, stupendously hardy mountaineers, in the middle of winter, without oxygen or sherpas, via the notoriously difficult West Ridge.
To find out what it takes to spend two months on the side of the world’s highest mountain, relentlessly pursuing this goal in sub-zero temperatures and relentless darkness, read this book.
As if climbing Everest isn’t hard enough, Joe Tasker tried to do it with a band of other incredibly brave, stupendously hardy mountaineers, in the middle of winter, without oxygen or sherpas, via the notoriously difficult West Ridge.
To find out what it takes to spend two months on the side of the world’s highest mountain, relentlessly pursuing this goal in sub-zero temperatures and relentless darkness, read this book.
August 6, 2014
I read every Peter Boardman, Joe Tasker book I could find until I found no more. My frame of reference for future armchair epics was difficult to match. These guys slept on hammocks instead of portaledges, trained for cold by sleeping in walk in freezers. Encouraged sleep on big walls will a sleeping pill and unless I missed something they were not sponsored at least to the point where they could quit their blue collar jobs. Their adventures were epic - I remember reading about their choice to not fully summit Changabang out of respect. They were several yards from the summit due to local beliefs and customs. They take nothing away from today's elite climbers, but they climbed in a different world. If you enjoy high altitude mountaineering and big walls from the tent or living room - at least check out a couple reviews and consider reading about these guys.
I'm estimating the date I finished all of the books I could find.
I'm estimating the date I finished all of the books I could find.
August 6, 2021
Everest the Cruel Way gives Joe Tasker's account of the British Team's attempt on the west ridge of Everest in winter 1980/1981. At the time, there had only been one successful winter expedition to an 8000m peak, the team were on an audacious project which pushed the limits of what was known to be humanly possible. It was only in 2021 that the final 8000m mountain was climbed in winter, with many not falling until the 2000s.
The book provides the right amount of technical detail but focuses heavily on the inter-personal relationships of the expedition members. Tasker is not shy in professing his opinion which gives the book an authentic, candid feel. This allows a level of empathy sometimes missing from mountain literature where it becomes easier to feel close to some of the perilous situations which are far removed from normal life.
Perhaps the problem with the book is that nothing so much went wrong or happened on the trip. The book proceeds linearly and stops at the story of the expedition. In comparison to Tasker's other book, Savage Arena, this weakens the narrative.
In Savage Arena there's a feeling of progression, that you are growing with Tasker as he takes on bigger and bigger challenges. Before long on this trip, it's quite clear that the challenge is too great and the attempt leads to futility without major incident.
Despite not having the strongest narrative drive, the ultimate difficultly and most importantly coldness of the Himalayas in winter comes across vividly. At one point he cites the adage about Eskimo's having many different words for snow, well, Tasker has as many elegant expressions at his disposal to describe wind and ice as it sweeps over Lho La.
Anyone interested in winter mountaineering should also read Winter 8000 by Bernadette McDonald and My Vertical World by Jerzy Kukuczka which provide an analytic and personal perspective respectively on the earliest winter attempts.
The book provides the right amount of technical detail but focuses heavily on the inter-personal relationships of the expedition members. Tasker is not shy in professing his opinion which gives the book an authentic, candid feel. This allows a level of empathy sometimes missing from mountain literature where it becomes easier to feel close to some of the perilous situations which are far removed from normal life.
Perhaps the problem with the book is that nothing so much went wrong or happened on the trip. The book proceeds linearly and stops at the story of the expedition. In comparison to Tasker's other book, Savage Arena, this weakens the narrative.
In Savage Arena there's a feeling of progression, that you are growing with Tasker as he takes on bigger and bigger challenges. Before long on this trip, it's quite clear that the challenge is too great and the attempt leads to futility without major incident.
Despite not having the strongest narrative drive, the ultimate difficultly and most importantly coldness of the Himalayas in winter comes across vividly. At one point he cites the adage about Eskimo's having many different words for snow, well, Tasker has as many elegant expressions at his disposal to describe wind and ice as it sweeps over Lho La.
Anyone interested in winter mountaineering should also read Winter 8000 by Bernadette McDonald and My Vertical World by Jerzy Kukuczka which provide an analytic and personal perspective respectively on the earliest winter attempts.
June 9, 2021
A classic of mountaineering, although not to the same extent as Savage Arena, Tasker's other (later) book.
This is the story of an ill-fated expedition to climb Everest by an unusual route, in winter. The challenge was too great and the team had to turn back, plagued by illness and atrocious weather. But that in no way diminishes their achievement, and they laid the ground work for later winter expeditions to the Himalayas having exposed exactly how cruel the wind in particular made climbing in that season.
Tasker is quite an acute observer of his partners, especially of their strengths as climbers and team-mates. He himself comes through less strongly, and this is a far less personally revealing account than is "Savage Arena". It's probably best read as an inspiring tale of what can be achieved even when short of ultimate success.
This is the story of an ill-fated expedition to climb Everest by an unusual route, in winter. The challenge was too great and the team had to turn back, plagued by illness and atrocious weather. But that in no way diminishes their achievement, and they laid the ground work for later winter expeditions to the Himalayas having exposed exactly how cruel the wind in particular made climbing in that season.
Tasker is quite an acute observer of his partners, especially of their strengths as climbers and team-mates. He himself comes through less strongly, and this is a far less personally revealing account than is "Savage Arena". It's probably best read as an inspiring tale of what can be achieved even when short of ultimate success.
October 9, 2020
I enjoyed this account of a winter Mt. Everest expedition, though not as much as I did Tasker's earlier book, "Savage Arena." I am not even sure why, except that this book seem slightly less personal and more of an "official" expedition book rather than a personal narrative. There are personal elements for sure, but - well, like I said, I am not even sure exactly why.
But it is just a slight difference for me, and still makes this book much better than most of the mountaineering books I have read. I like his apparent honesty in admitting his own failings, both physical at times of extreme technical difficulties or emotional in getting along with climbing teammates. This book starts out a bit dry with some history and an overview of Everest, but it soon picks up speed, so stick with it.
But it is just a slight difference for me, and still makes this book much better than most of the mountaineering books I have read. I like his apparent honesty in admitting his own failings, both physical at times of extreme technical difficulties or emotional in getting along with climbing teammates. This book starts out a bit dry with some history and an overview of Everest, but it soon picks up speed, so stick with it.
August 4, 2017
Chilling
How dull the lives of those of us who have never found our full capacity. The author takes us to a place few others have ever been, and even then we cannot fully understand the price these men paid to achieve what they did. It is awe inspiring to see such courage among our species.
How dull the lives of those of us who have never found our full capacity. The author takes us to a place few others have ever been, and even then we cannot fully understand the price these men paid to achieve what they did. It is awe inspiring to see such courage among our species.
March 23, 2019
A gripping narrative. Brings vividly to life the struggles these guys had to endure during their expedition. It also irrevocably tells you that there is nothing comparable to the sheer force of nature once it decides to fight you. Some fights just cannot be won...
February 3, 2023
Technical
An avid armchair mountaineer, I find this detailed account interesting and informative. For anyone not into the minutae of mountaineering, I think you will find it tedious.
An avid armchair mountaineer, I find this detailed account interesting and informative. For anyone not into the minutae of mountaineering, I think you will find it tedious.
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April 19, 2021Everest The Cruel Way by Joe Tasker
Written by Joe Tasker, Everest The Cruel Way covers the 1981 expedition to climb Everest’s west ridge. It was always going to be a monumental task; not just an unclimbed ridge but without oxygen and in winter. With his partner, Pete Boardman, Joe was at the forefront of light weight, alpine style trips to the Greater Ranges. Like Pete, he was a talented writer and although this book isn’t quite on the level of his other book, “Savage Arena”, it’s a worthy companion and well worth reading.
It was a bit of a ground breaking expedition, small and light weight wheras all before had been large, expensive and huge organisational feats. It’s another warts and all book and very honest in that it doesn’t flinch from describing personality conflicts and problems. Eight friends, talented climbers all but facing a virtually impossible challenge makes for gripping reading but most interesting are the conflict between individuals, the messy organisation (or lack of due to their ideals of democracy). Ground down by the relentless winds and bitter winter cold and splits within the group, success eludes them but that doesn’t detract from a good read.
I like the slim, paperback format which makes for a nice small volume suitable for travel reading. The book could benefit from a few diagrams to flesh out the written descriptions of the route and photos would have been a nice addition but were probably left out to keep the price down.
Overall, a nice book to read in conjunction with “Savage Arena” and Pete Boardman’s “The Shining Mountain” and “Sacred Summits”
Written by Joe Tasker, Everest The Cruel Way covers the 1981 expedition to climb Everest’s west ridge. It was always going to be a monumental task; not just an unclimbed ridge but without oxygen and in winter. With his partner, Pete Boardman, Joe was at the forefront of light weight, alpine style trips to the Greater Ranges. Like Pete, he was a talented writer and although this book isn’t quite on the level of his other book, “Savage Arena”, it’s a worthy companion and well worth reading.
It was a bit of a ground breaking expedition, small and light weight wheras all before had been large, expensive and huge organisational feats. It’s another warts and all book and very honest in that it doesn’t flinch from describing personality conflicts and problems. Eight friends, talented climbers all but facing a virtually impossible challenge makes for gripping reading but most interesting are the conflict between individuals, the messy organisation (or lack of due to their ideals of democracy). Ground down by the relentless winds and bitter winter cold and splits within the group, success eludes them but that doesn’t detract from a good read.
I like the slim, paperback format which makes for a nice small volume suitable for travel reading. The book could benefit from a few diagrams to flesh out the written descriptions of the route and photos would have been a nice addition but were probably left out to keep the price down.
Overall, a nice book to read in conjunction with “Savage Arena” and Pete Boardman’s “The Shining Mountain” and “Sacred Summits”
January 16, 2022
Pretty easy reading, but a bit of an anticlimax.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 28, 2023
It's zero fun to criticize this book when the author died a year later. But this is unfortunately unreadable. This suffers from every "thing-doer writes the book" problem available. It's a disorganized presentation of one perspective with zero background research or thought given to the context the reader needs. This is especially crippling when the whole point is to visualize where these people are on Everest and what they're going through. The unstructured approach reads like a journal, except it's made worse by the obvious thesaurus open next to the typewriter, which turns this from an unhelpful but quick 200 pages into an unintelligible drag.
I kept wondering, "this is one of the most impossible routes up Everest, compounded by two insane choices- why didn't an author pick up this story and do it right?" I think the simple answer is that they didn't get anywhere close enough to the summit to make this a story.
This was sadly a letdown. Everyone should read Everest: The West Ridge instead.
I kept wondering, "this is one of the most impossible routes up Everest, compounded by two insane choices- why didn't an author pick up this story and do it right?" I think the simple answer is that they didn't get anywhere close enough to the summit to make this a story.
This was sadly a letdown. Everyone should read Everest: The West Ridge instead.
June 14, 2025
There was something about this book that didn't sit right with me and I can't quite put my finger on it. It's definitely dated, the way in which Tasker refers to the Sherpa's at times is unacceptable, but outside of that I think it just felt... boring.
I'm well aware that most of the mountaineering books I read deal in tragedy, and whilst there are some 'third party' deaths in this, the tragedy is just that this bunch of men can't climb Everest. So I've read a dull book about men shitting themselves in freezing temperatures, and lying in cold tents, or arguing about lying in cold tents.
It's possible that the allure of reading this genre of book has worn off, but it's also possible I'm not a fan of the authors writing style.
I'm well aware that most of the mountaineering books I read deal in tragedy, and whilst there are some 'third party' deaths in this, the tragedy is just that this bunch of men can't climb Everest. So I've read a dull book about men shitting themselves in freezing temperatures, and lying in cold tents, or arguing about lying in cold tents.
It's possible that the allure of reading this genre of book has worn off, but it's also possible I'm not a fan of the authors writing style.
October 5, 2025
Getting a grip.
This is an enthralling read, beautifully written, to a standard well beyond what frequently passes for literature today. It's a great story, honestly told.
This is an enthralling read, beautifully written, to a standard well beyond what frequently passes for literature today. It's a great story, honestly told.
November 25, 2025
I love Tasker's unassuming, observational style. Just enough personality to make reading easy, but not enough to overshadow the task itself.
October 17, 2015
I was actually in two minds on rating this book as I'm not sure it really rates a 2 or 3. 2.5 is probably a more accurate representation of my experience with the book.
Joe Tasker and his team set out on an impossible mission-to climb the West Ridge of Everest in the winter.
The copy I had was very poorly edited with bad spelling, parts of sentences missing, full stops in the middle of sentences, commas in the wrong places and sentences that seemed to make no sense at all. I wasn't greatly impressed by whoever allowed that to be released for sale as it has obviously never been near a proofreader or editor. And if you are going to talk about Jimi Hendrix, at least spell his name right FFS!
The writing itself was not greatly exciting to me. The way things were being described sounded more like a boys camping trip than a dangerous assault on Everest. It was made to sound like a bit of a tricky rock climb in the first half of the book, and only later did we get a real sense of it being dangerous. I never really got drawn into the adventure the way I have with other Everest books...it just didn't greatly excite me.
Not the best climbing book I've read.
Joe Tasker and his team set out on an impossible mission-to climb the West Ridge of Everest in the winter.
The copy I had was very poorly edited with bad spelling, parts of sentences missing, full stops in the middle of sentences, commas in the wrong places and sentences that seemed to make no sense at all. I wasn't greatly impressed by whoever allowed that to be released for sale as it has obviously never been near a proofreader or editor. And if you are going to talk about Jimi Hendrix, at least spell his name right FFS!
The writing itself was not greatly exciting to me. The way things were being described sounded more like a boys camping trip than a dangerous assault on Everest. It was made to sound like a bit of a tricky rock climb in the first half of the book, and only later did we get a real sense of it being dangerous. I never really got drawn into the adventure the way I have with other Everest books...it just didn't greatly excite me.
Not the best climbing book I've read.
December 12, 2018
I cry with this book, i lo0ved
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews