42 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The price of victory, September 28, 2009
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David Roberts' name on a mountain climbing book is a guarantee of a good read, and this one is no exception. The first chapter grabbed me, and I ended up spending most of the weekend reading this book instead of doing other things I'd planned! Roberts has the knack of making you able to visualize what's going on during a climb, even if you've never read or seen anything else about the terrain.
Do we need another book about K2? The unique feature of this one is that it gives Ed Viesturs' slant on what went wrong (and right) in the expeditions to this dangerous mountain. There's no shortage of armchair mountaineers, but Viesturs has the credentials to make his analysis stick. His own 1992 climb doesn't get a chapter (I guess you'll have to get his other book for that), but he covers the most important years in which climbers attempted the mountain. The book is also the most up-to-date summary of the astonishing scandal behind the 1954 Italian climb, which has fully come to light only in the last couple of years.
A previous reviewer complained about lack of pictures. Actually, according to the rear jacket, the final version of the book includes 28 pages of color and B&W photos (absent, alas, from the pre-publication freebie copies).
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17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
AN INTENSELY PERSONAL & HISTORICAL LOOK AT K2: ONE OF THE WORLD'S GREAT CLIMBS, October 1, 2009
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Five AIRY Stars!! Author & mountaineer Ed Viesturs is one of the world's great climbers who has pulled off the rare feat of reaching the summit of all 14 "8000 meters and higher" peaks, topped off by Everest. This up-to-date book on the second highest mountain, K2, written along with mountaineering author David Roberts, follows Viesturs' famous book
No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World's 14 Highest Peaks. Mr. Viesturs knows K2 very well since he made a troubled ascent of this 28,241 ft monster which he barely survived. He also gives a historical view of the most important attempts at climbing this mountain with the highest fatality rates among 8000 meter peaks. Compared to Everest, which the author says has many ascents each climbing season, K2 is a unique experience with comparatively fewer ascents. Difficult to get to in the Karakoram range, avalanche-prone, plagued by bad weather, with bivouacs inadvisable, and with no winter ascents, K2 is a daunting proposition for the most experienced climbers in the best of circumstances.
Beginning with the events of August 1 & 2, 2008 which became the worst climbing disaster in the history of K2 (an accumulation of events), Mr Viesturs gives both a very frank and personal viewpoint of his own climb and experiences, juxtaposed with other major campaigns and historical events over the years. Despite many 'topical switchbacks' between different climbs which can be mildly difficult to follow, this is an engrossing and sometimes touching read that covers teams, climbing techniques, tactics, heroics and failures, lives and deaths. He also covers the routes, especially the familiar "Abruzzi ridge route" with the main features: the ridge itself, the Bottleneck couloir, House's chimney, the Black Pyramid, the ice serac, the leftward traverse, the summit pyramid, and the alternate Abruzzi spur route. For those new to K2, the map at the front is most helpful in tracking the activities of various teams & campaigns. The author has included photographs, especially the author's own K2 summit photos, to help the reader visualize the mountain, climbers, and the camps much better. Reservations aside, this book, laden with detail, contains invaluable information and remembrances. Highly recommended. Five WHITE KNUCKLED Stars! (Uncorrected paperback proof; 332 pages) *Amended 4/12/10 because the author has included photographs in the final product based on the Amazon product description. Five Stars!!*
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19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"Base camp" for beginning your study of the history of climbing K2, October 4, 2009
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I am reviewing a preproduction uncorrected proof. Some of the criticism may not apply to the final version.
The primary author of K2: Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain is Ed Viesturs. In 2005, Viesturs was the first American to summit all 14 of the world's 8000ers - mountains over 8000 meters high - and has been a part of 30 expeditions to 8000ers. He's summited Everest seven times and was a member of the 1996 Everest IMAX movie team. He has been climbing for 32 years, and began guiding on Mt. Rainier in 1987. It's also notable that he has survived to write about it.
This book discusses seven of the most notable expeditions to K2:
(1) August 2008 - Notable because 11 climbers perished in a 36 hour period. Also notable because of the recency and the amount of publicity this event received.
(2) The author's 1996 first summit of K2 with Scott Fischer, detailed also in Viestur's
No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World's 14 Highest Peaks.
(3) 1938 - The first American expedition to K2. Some believed the expedition to primarily be a reconnoitering mission for an expedition the following year, but the climbers made in within 2250 feet of the peak. Chronicled in
Five Miles High.
(4) 1938 - The second American expedition to K2 led by Fritz Weissner. Wiessner and Pasang Lama came within 750 feet of the summit. A logistics breakdown prevented another summit attempt and resulted in the loss of four lives. Detailed in
K2: The 1939 Tragedy.
(5) The 1953 American expedition - Expeditions did not occur during the World War II years, and the 1947 split of Pakistan from India resulted in no permits being issued for a number of years. The carefully chosen team only reached 25,800 feet when they were required to return to base camp in an attempt to save team member Art Gilkey who had developed thrombophlebitis in the leg which subsequently led to a pulmonary embolism. Gilkey's life was lost in an avalanche before he could be returned to base. Detailed in
K2, The Savage Mountain: The Classic True Story of Disaster and Survival on the World's Second-Highest Mountain.
(6) The 1954 Italian expedition which resulted in the first summit of K2 by Lacedelli and Compagnoni - The expedition was extremely large by all measures. So was the controversy surrounding the summit. Detailed in Ascent of K2: Second Highest Peak in the World.
(7) 1986 expeditions involving 11 teams - Notable because more climbers were lost this season than any other when 13 perished. Seven climbers summitted, of which only two survived. Detailed in
K2: Triumph and Tragedy.
As seen by the references to other works, all of these missions were detailed elsewhere. However, I feel that what Viesturs mainly brings to the table, in addition to his own expertise as a mountaineer, is decades of additional information about these expeditions since these works were written. Most of these works were written by team members if not by the leaders themselves, and can certainly be colored by their own interpretation. In several cases, diaries of other team members have become available years later. Also, attitudes may have been different at the time of the writing of these books than today. For example, the author suggests that some of the criticism levelled against Wiessner by Kauffman and Putman was due to the prevailing attitude toward Germans in the years leading up to World War II. Wiessner was German-born although a naturalized US citizen. Viesturs' experience also comes into play. When Putnam and Kauffman assert that certain procedures were standard in mountaineering, for example, that the leader always leads from the rear, the author gives copious counterexamples to reject their assertion.
Viesturs never purports that this book is from the view of a detached journalist. It is made clear when he is expressing his opinion, and the book is filled with "I" and "me," although not to an egotistical extent. I consider this advantagous in that you know that the author is expressing his opinion. The author, by his own admission, claims to be a conservative climber, and says that his own summit of K2 was tarnished in his mind by his pushing ahead when his gut told him not to. He felt that he was lucky to have survived. The downside is that the author could be interjecting his own opinion as much as the authors of the other books that he is sometimes countering. However, with this experience, I have no reason to doubt him. Although he does give his opinion of what went wrong is some of these expeditions, he also says he's slow to question decisions made by people in those situations at the time. Overall, I thought Viesturs' presentation was very balanced.
As for my criticisms, I am no climbing expert, but know a few terms - crampon, self-arrest, etc. Others were new to me - couloir, traverse, serac. There's no reason that this book would not be popular for a very general audience, and I feel that the authors could have tailored it a little better for a general audience by spending a dozen sentences to provide short definitions of mountaineering terms. The book had two very crude charcoal drawings of the mountain. I don't know if these will remain in the final edition, but I wished for something much more detailed. I found a great poster on the internet that helped me see the routes and key points from the various expeditions, but I hoped this book would stand alone. I also yearned for some photos of key points so I could picture them better - House's Chimney, the Motivator, the Bottleneck, etc. The cover of the proof indicated that the final book will contain 16 black and white photos and 12 full color photos. The proof does not contain these, so I don't know if they satisfy my desire. As a final point, the MSRP seems a bit on the high side for a general interest book such as this that should appeal to such a wide audience.
The author mentions several other books in this book. For the benefit of the review reader, they are
The Ascent of Everest,
Annapurna,
In the Throne Room of the Mountain Gods,
The Last Step: The American Ascent of K2, Brotherhood of the Rope: The Biography of Charles Houston (Legends and Lore), and K2: The Story of the Savage Mountain. (Amazon, after encouraging the use of product links, has limited the number to ten, so you'll have to search for the last few yourself.)
In summary, K2: Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain is a great jumping-off point for a study of the attempts to conquer K2, providing not only the references for more detailed study, but also providing additional background to make the studying of those references more profitable.
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Is there anything more enthralling than a true tale of high adventure well told? Stories about men and women braving impossible odds under daunting conditions in far flung locales, often risking life and limb, keep me glued to the page every time. I’m talking about books like 
