The Endless Knot: K2, Mountain of Dreams and Destiny [Hardcover]

Kurt Diemberger (Author), Audrey Salkeld (Translator)

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German

Product Details

• Hardcover: 308 pages
• Publisher: Mountaineers Books (June 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0898863007
• ISBN-13: 978-0898863000
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,115,207 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars AN INCREDIBLE STORY OF OBSESSION AND SURVIVAL, BUY IT!!., June 18, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (CAMBRIDGE UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Endless Knot: K2, Mountain of Dreams and Destiny (Hardcover)

Kurt Diemburger's, Endless Knot must be one of the greatest mountaineering books of the modern age, and sits easily with the likes of Hienrich Harrier's White spider and Joe Simpson's Touching the Void. Diemburger is the only living mountaineer to have made first ascent of two of the eight thousand metre peaks, along with ascents of most of the remaining peaks. The Endless Knot tells of the peak that became a thirty year obsession for Diemburger. The peak in question is K2, the second highest peak in the world. The book starts out as a promise to a his dead partner Julie Tullis to tell of the passion for the mountains that drove them to do what they did. Quickly he recounts how the obsession with this mountain began and how he rose up the ranks of the mountaineering world. Then covers how he and Tullis became the world highest film crew, working on Everest, Broad peak and K2. The final chapters deal with the tragic account of the 1986 K2 disaster which over one summer claimed 13 lives. Among the some of the world best mountaineers. This account is unique as it offers the only firsthand account in English of the course of the final disaster which claimed the life of Julie Tullis along with five others. After eight climbers became trapped by storms at 8000 metres for five days. What follows is the moving account of the slow death of those trapped as they fall to the altitude and exhaustion. After five days when death has claimed two, the survivors they make a final bid for freedom, this final chapter of the climb is more gripping than any work of fiction ever as the remaining climbers die where they are as the run out life. Even though Diemburger obviously survived this climax has you wondering how any one can survive such an ordeal. This book is an absolute must for climbers and armchair mountaineers the world over buy it now. Other books that cover this event are: K2 Savage Mountain, The Clouds from both sides, Alan Rouse a Mountaineers life, K2 Triumph and Tragedy and the Burgess book ! of lies.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Unique, March 1, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Endless Knot: K2, Mountain of Dreams and Destiny (Hardcover)

I've read a lot of mountaineering literature, but I've never read one like this before. Most books in the genre are fairly straight forward narratives of adventure, but Diemberger makes this one out to be some kind of spiritual journey. He tends to wax eloquent more than I care for and makes a prodigious use of metaphors. You can flip to any paragraph in the book and find usual adjectives or metaphors. It seems every action he does has a metaphor to climbing, everything from sailing to taking a plane flight. Even something as simple as a meeting at a television studio becomes a quest and a metaphor to climbing. The heavy use of some extremely flowery adjectives may be due to the fact that this was originally written in German and later translated to English. Possibly the translator had something to do with it, but Diemberger speaks English, so I have my doubts. Diemberger is one of the few climber authors to admit that attitude/fatigue could have affected his judgment and preception of events, which is refreshing. However, he goes to great lengths to discount other peoples view of events, particular to make his climbing partner, Julie Tullis, look good. He discounts some events as untrue, then in the next paragraph describes what he just said didn't happen! One odd gap in the story is their bivouac that Diemberger barely describes. They bivy, then suddenly it's the next day. No description on how they passed the night.