At 28,250 feet, K2 is an enduring testimony to the strength of the human spirit, a mountain where dreams and destiny meet, and sometimes collide. It is considered one of the ultimate challenges for professional high-altitude climbers, a mountain that eschews mere luck and demands both physical and mental fortitude. As of May 2000, only 148 men and 5 woman have reached the top. Eighteen of those men and 3 of those women never returned, and for the past five years the weather conditions have been so severe that no one has successfully reached the summit from the Pakistan side. Although it is approximately 800 feet lower than Mount Everest, the established routes on K2 are far more difficult than the standard (Western Cwm/SE Ridge) route on Everest. Temperatures are on average 10 degrees colder, the climate is much more arid, and the weather windows are shorter and less predictable. K2 is also much steeper. Howkins route on the Abruzzi Ridge involves 3,500 vertical meters of climbing in a space of 3 horizontal kilometers, or an average 49-degree slope. Howkin's goal is to climb K2 in alpine style (without established camps, high-altitude porters, or supplemental oxygen. Howkins ambition for the expedition is to do more than "just climb" K2. "We should measure our success not by numbers, but by style," she explains, "It's not what you do, it's how you do it that matters. If you can dream it, you can do it. But don't just do it. Do it with compassion and style." A single mother of a 7 year-old daughter, Howkins believes the rewards of living on the edge outweigh the risks she takes whenever she sets foot on the world's highest peaks. "Sometimes its very terrifying when I think of not seeing my daughter again. Mountaineering is a life or death situation and I have to be ready for whatever challenge I may face. I take it very seriously. My daughter gives me a desperate kind of strength that helps motivate my training."
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
For years Heidi Howkins, a young climber, nursed an ambitious dream: to reach the summit of K2--the world's second-tallest and one of its least accessible peaks--without using oxygen. She eventually did, though not without plenty of scary moments and much cause for reflection.
Howkins, addressing the reader through stories told to a bemused hitchhiker, reports much more than the sheer achievement of her ascents of K2, notable though they were. Along the way she tells him, and us, of a failed marriage, of the logistical nightmares that accompany any expedition to remote places, of the endless conflicts that can ensue when climbing partners are not carefully vetted. As the lone woman on her K2 climbs, Howkins had more than the usual problems to contend with, though those problems--bad weather, scary bus rides along the Karakoram Highway, the constant presence of death--were hard enough. All of them get an airing in Howkins's book, but for all that, her sense of adventure far outweighs the many downsides.
Why take on such a challenge in the first place? A friend warned her about trying to explain, and Howkins toys with a few explanations: the rush gained by conquering fear, denying the fragility of human existence, and "embracing survival with gusto." In the end, though, her best explanation is this: "When you get to the top of K2, there's nowhere left to go. There is a cessation of passion, of the desire to move forever upwards. There is emptiness, and the closure of a circle. You are back where you started. You're at peace." --Gregory McNamee --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
In 1997, Howkins applied for a permit to climb Kanchenjunga, or K2the "savage mountain"the second highest peak in the world at 8,616 meters (or 28,267 feet) and in many ways more difficult than Everest. "It is the ultimate goal for many climbers, and reaching the summit is akin to winning the Olympic gold," writes Howkins, the first American woman to reach the base of K2's summit peak. The first three-quarters of this fascinating but uneven book trace Howkins's journey from planning to final descent. Howkins's photographic recall of events, places and details of what climbers endure yields statements like "glove fuzz and sheer exhaustion and carbon monoxide poisoning from cooking inside a tent are not the main obstacles to eating.... the higher you go, the more your appetite diminishes." Unlike some swooning climber-authors, Howkins doesn't romanticize her struggles. ("I once heard someone define Himalayan climbing as the `art of suffering.' I understand the suffering part, but I'm not sure I fully grasp the artistic challenge.") But her book is flawed by the structural conceit of telling her tale to a hitchhiker. The strength of her story (including an increasingly psychotic husband-climbing partner) is better served when she simply tells it, sans hitchhiker, in the last quarter of the book, which recounts an unsuccessful attempt up K2 in 2000. However, this very personal account of the climbing experience, including the rampant sexism that pervades the climbing community, is an important addition to the ever-growing genre. 16 pages of photos not seen by PW. (May)Forecast: To coincide with the release of this book about adventure from a woman's point of view, CNBC will air a National Geographic Explorer special entitled Surviving K2, followed by coverage by the networks. Meanwhile, the author will drum up sales in a cross-country tour with stops in Boston, Seattle, New York, Denver, Berkeley, Boulder and Portland, Ore.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Bad read,
By A Customer
This review is from: K2: One Woman's Quest for the Summit (Adventure Press) (Paperback)
This is the worst mountianeering book I have ever read. Heidi Howkins may have accomplished great feats in her mountianeering career, but writng books is not one. This book is more of an account of the mess she has made of her personal life, rather than high adventure. If you are looking to read about the beauty and tragedy of K2, you will not find it here. You will find failure, and blame. It is a horrible jumbled account of several experiances, several of which do not belong in print.
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Could have been a classic,
By A Customer
This review is from: K2: One Woman's Quest for the Summit (Adventure Press) (Paperback)
I believe that, had Howkins left out the rambling and disorienting narrative style (and abolished the Hiddle character forever), this might have been a great book. For the most part, her storytelling is riveting, and she ranks among the best as far as describing the technical aspects of climbing. I only wish that one of her editors had asked for revisions, revisions, revisions, because the hitchhiker device is almost enough to completely ruin a good story. It is contrived, and one has to skip almost all of the conversation to find the good parts about the Himalayan climbs. The only thing I can imagine, is that Hiddle is in fact a phantom, a residue hallucination from spending a bit too much time above 23,000 feet.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Misleading Title,
By A Customer
This review is from: K2 (Adventure Press) (Paperback)
When you read a title that reads "K2 a quest for the summit" you expect a story about how somebody got to the summit, Heidi did not. This is the story of a woman searching for herself who happens who like mountaineering. I wanted a book about mountaineering and got the troubles and tribulations of a woman in search of herself. Bad read.
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