34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting but not comprehensive, July 17, 2010
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This book is about the events of August 1-4, 2008 on K2. The author interviewed most or all of the other people on the mountain and produced this narrative by assembling and reconciling their accounts.
The story is told almost entirely through their eyes. The result is a interesting and absorbing book but not one that draws conclusions. For example, no one actually saw the icefall that caused the tragedy and so it is never really described; the reader is allowed to piece together what happened based on some basic information about ice formations and on what the witnesses did see or hear. And no blame is cast but those of us whose climbing experience consists of reading books about it are left to spot what seem to be common problems -- delays going up, weak individual climbers, questionably-set ropes.
The epilogue reveals that the author did ask his interviewees about blame, so perhaps they did not adequately agree or perhaps an editorial decision was made that that information did not fit this sort of point-of-view storytelling. The epilogue also frankly acknowledges that others have put the evidence together differently; their versions put some individuals in a better light but do not basically change what happened.
The book's scope is limited to what happened to certain people at a particular time near the top of the mountain. It is not for those more interested in a comprehensive review of what went before, or of what went wrong, or of K2 mountaineering in general.
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25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Chilling Reality, July 5, 2010
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I have always been fascinated by stories of mountain climbing. And I have always been afraid of falling from great heights. So for me a life that included technical climbing was never in the cards.
Notwithstanding, I enjoy a connection with the outdoors and love all seasons. I love the stark beauty of extreme weather and high places. This story teaches us a little about those people who are willing to chance their life to reach the worlds most extreme environments and extreme elevations. For me it is one of the only ways I will ever experience places like K2.
The story takes us through the final stages of ascent to the summit and return trip down. A number of individuals are described and their individual personalities are revealed, though at times it's a little difficult to keep them all straight.
But the account of the final climb to the summit was so compelling to me that I found it hard to put this book down. The author managed to make me feel cold, feel the fear of falling off the mountain. I could imagine the desolation, desperation and dispair that the people must have felt, and even the elation of achieving the goal of reaching the summit.
One thing this story made clear for me was that reaching the summit of a peak like K2 really is just one part of the whole picture. Getting back down in one piece is quite another. In this story we are taken into the expedition and learn in detail the many ways the return trip can go wrong in the blink of an eye.
As a result of reading this story I will never again see my own outdoor exploits as anything even remotely approaching the "extreme". An assault on K2 ranks right up there with trying to reach the moon.
I liked the author's self-revealing introduction where he admits his almost total lack of prior experience with the world of mountain climbing, and at the end of the book the great detail he shares about how the book was written, based on interviews, historical and expedition accounts published by others. All this really helped put the account into perspective and enriches the basis of the story.
I would have liked to have seen some illustrations showing the layout of the landmarks in the story, and the routes taken by the climbing teams. Not familiar with K2 it was a little hard to put the proportion of the climb into perspective.
The part of the story before the teams reached the fourth camp is also a bit thin, leaving out perhaps a lot of mundane information, but I suspect that climbing up to the last camp was itself no easy feat and must have had some interesting elements to be told, for certainly many who reached the last camp did not attempt the summit.
Overall I found this a very satisfying read, even to the point of making me feel a little like wishing I was young enough to learn to climb, overcome my fears, and only then consider an expedition of a lifetime (literally) like this.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Another and better perspective ., August 16, 2010
Everyone who found "No Way Down" interesting should also read "One Mountain Thousand Summits " by Freddie Wilkinson for further insight into the events at K2 in August 2008 . While Graham Bowley's "No Way Down" contains a very helpful chronology and is an admirable attempt at presenting a balanced view of the participants ,his obvious ignorance of climbing simply hampered his ability to tell the whole story . Freddie Wilkinson is an experienced climber and because of that is much more able to understand and communicate the signifcance of the events and how Himalayan climbing has evolved to the point that a disaster like K2 in August 2008 could happen in the first place . That is why Jon Krakauer in "Into Thin Air" was able to interest the non-climbing public in a way non-climbing authors couldn't . I'm glad I read Mr. Bowley's book first but found that it left too many unanswered questions about too many things .
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