Customer Reviews

The Other Side of Everest: Climbing the North Face Through the Killer Storm

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was a bit hesitant to read The Other Side of Everest; it was beginning to seem to me that there wasn't a person anywhere near the mountain during 1996 that *hadn't* written a book. I figured this one would be a rehashing of the story we all know so well, from Into Thin Air and other books. How wrong I was. The Other Side of Everest offers a different perspective of the 1996 tragedies, but it's well told - *and* the book offers a great deal more.

Dickinson, in my opinion, did a better job than Krakauer at writing for the non-climbing audience, perhaps because he isn't really a climber at all. He doesn't use much jargon, and when he does - "the Death Zone," for example, which was the UK title of this book - he defines his terms. He also answers a lot of the questions non-mountaineers and armchair adventurers have about climbing; for once and for all, he explains why climbers dread calls of nature above 8,000 meters, as just one example.

Dickinson writes very differently than most climbers, especially the ones who have written about Everest 1996. His narrative retains the tension and, in some places, tragedy that are common to the best expedition accounts, but he also uses humor in places where it's appropriate. I found myself laughing out loud in several places. The Other Side of Everest is also different in that it doesn't have the haunted, agonizing tone that Into Thin Air did, perhaps because Dickinson was farther from the tragedies, relatively speaking, or perhaps just because he waited longer than Krakauer did to write about it. Also, The Other Side is an account of a successful, "easy" Everest climb, not a disaster, which changes the perspective and the tone a lot from the other books about the 1996 season.

In additional to the Everest-disaster-season story, The Other Side has another story to tell: how a non-climber got to the top of the world. Dickinson's case of summit fever drives him to the top of a mountain he didn't really expect to climb - after all, he's clumsy even at sea level - and so his book is a good look at the way normal people with little mountaineering experience (i.e., commercial expedition members) handle high-altitude climbs - and, to the extent that it can be explained at all, why.

This book was written by a film director, so perhaps it isn't a surprise that the pictures are so good, but it's lovely anyway. I'm also pleased that the publishers sprung for two different insets of color photos, at least in the hardcover edition; some of them are truly breathtaking.

In short, The Other Side of Everest is well worth reading for all lovers of adventure travel and climbing writing; even those who feel they've read Everest to death should enjoy this one. The book is a welcome addition to climbing literature, and would give pleasure on almost anyone's bookshelf.

Much has been written about Mount Everest 1996 and indeed the debate that was initiated not just by the events on the mountain but by the accounts of it primarily in Krakauer's Into Thin Air and Boukreev's The Climb continues. The Other Side of Everest (The Death Zone in England and Australia - don't but the same book twice!) adds to our knowledge of May '96 while at the same time does not attempt to mimic other accounts or indeed to enter the understandably emotive arena of claim and counter claim that personifies the 1996 Everest season.

Matt Dickinson, a film maker, writer and novice climber attempted Everest by its North Face. Essentially a cameraman there to film the English actor Brian Blessed's third attempt on the mountain, Dickinson writes with a refreshing honesty regarding his motivations, his fears and his almost lack of climbing skill. The result is an excellent account of the climb that enables the reader - particularly those of us whose highest peak is a flight of stairs - to get an understanding of the reality not just of climbing in general but of climbing Everest in May of 1996.

Most people will read this book after Boukreev and Krakauer have stimulated their interest in Everest. If this is the case you might also want to take a look at Everest: Mountain Without Mercy, a stunning IMAX pictorial account of the '96 climb. Furthermore, if like me you're now hooked on the whole subject of mountaineering then do a search for the books of Joe Simpson and Andrew Greig, you won't be disappointed.

Like many who started with Krakauer's Into Thin Air, I've now read a number of Everest stories, including more than one eye-witness account of the 1996 storm. Dickinson's story includes another description of the 1996 storm, but from the North rather than the South side of the mountain. Because of the different approach, Dickinson is not able to add detail or first-hand opinions on the disaster that played out on the South Col. However, Dickinson's account is well worth adding to the library for several reasons: it is well-written and humorous, it provides interesting information on the North route (the one attempted by Mallory and Irvine), and, more than any of the other Everest books I have read, it describes the conditions on Everest in such a way that a non-climber, like me, can almost imagine what it must be like to be so high, with so little air, in such cold. As he is quick to admit, Dickinson is not a high-altitude climber. He came to Everest to direct a documentary film about climbing the mountain, but initially did not intend to attempt the summit himself. Because he was a novice at high-altitude, Dickinson is able to describe the surprising sensations of oxygenless and extreme cold more convincingly than others, such as Boukreev, who almost assumes familiarity with such matters. At least for this armchair climber, these details are at least as fascinating and exciting as the dramatic story playing out on the South Col. And of course, because Dickinson did summit Everest and did return to tell the story, there is plenty of human drama and climbing excitement. I highly recommend this account.

I'm starting to feel like an Everest junkie after reading Into Thin Air and watching the IMAX account of that climb. I was skeptical that this book would add anything, so I guess it pleasantly surprised me. Because Dickinsin is not an "expert" climber, I enjoyed his open and honest perspective into climbing. As the scrappy guy, he surprises everyone by actually gaining strength and being able to attain the summit.

This book has even more blow by blow detail than Into Thin Air. If you are interested in just how hard it is to make every step towards the top, this book will take you there. It's the closest many of us will get to any task of this magnitude. Plus, this book offers a new and interesting perspective: the NORTH face of the mountain, a tougher climb in many respects. As such, it serves as an excellent companion to Into Thin Air for its complimentary perspective. I enjoyed the vivid details of this book from the extraordinary sherpas to the feisty yak herders to the accounts of bowel evacuation on a high mountain. There are also some interesting personal insights. In short, an excellent read, well written and very detailed. I feel out of oxygen from the last 40 pages.

I read this after Krakauer and Boukreev's stories, and found it every bit as gripping. Must admit to having become a fanatical armchair Everesteer, and it has to be a pretty bad book to not hold my interest (Lene Gammelgard manages though!) And, yes, it is called 'The Death Zone' in the English and Australian editions at least.

Matt Dickinson, the clumsy, inexperienced, determined cameraman, left behind debts and a family to shoot Brian Blessed, a famous British actor, climb Everest via the less traveled North Face. Little did the group of climbers know that they would be stuck on Everest with the worst storm in modern history hovering above their heads. Matt shows that the illusion of a "nice climb" on Everest does not ehxist. Waiting for good weather at base camp is nerve wracking, while getting news that many people including Rob Hall and Scott Fischer have died. When good weather finally arrives, Matt, Brian Blessed, Al Hinkes - and experienced climber, Kees - Matt's friend, and Barney - the leader for group A, leave to summit Everest. Altitdue bites at their minds and they move too slowly to continue together with Brian, the weak link. together, Al and Matt attempt a summit, while the others head back to base camp. This book shows the true effects of altitude and a great mountain, against inexpeience and determination. A very good book. Though I was not glued to the book, something made me want to go on and read more. I was waiting to finish it for it showed the other side of Everest, the north face, and the other side through the climber's mind. Very solid, intense, yet through Matt's point of view - a likeable character who the reader can relate to - an average person/climber who got stuck with more than he thought he could handle. Two thumbs up!

I didn't think I would find a book to top "Into Thin Air" and one that would take a different view of the 1996 tragedy. I could NOT put this book down. I made it last a week and didn't want it to end. Dickinson really achieves putting the reader into the story. I live under the High Sierra and have summited Mt.Whitney in Calif. Driving by that mountain that seems to shoot straight up into the sky, I remembered Dickinson's description of the Himalaya valley floors that were at 18,000 feet. I imagined the towering 14,000 foot peaks of the Sierra buried under 4,000 feet of dirt and that would be only the valley FlOOR of the Himalays with 11,000 feet to go to the summit of Everest. THEN I could visualize the unbelievable height of this mountain. THEN I could realize the effort it takes (and what it takes OUT of someone) to get to the summit.
Dickinson's writing is funny, tragic and extremely descriptive of the area, the people and the hard-to-imagine-summit he finally made. I know his wife would like him to stay home, but I hope he makes another trip to the Himalayas and writes another book!

This is a gripping account of the deadly storm which engulfed Mt. Everest in May 1996 and left a trail of dead bodies in its wake on the south face of the mountain. The author writes about the storm as experienced on the north face: hence, the title of the book. He writes about the tragedy which engulfed the north side of Everest, in which death also came calling.

The author provides many details of his expedition's ascent which is sure to fascinate and delight all Everest junkees. The narrative is compelling and absorbing. The tragic deaths of three members of the Indian team who reached the summit, only to become engulfed by the storm during their descent down the precipitous north face of Everest, trapping them over night, is heartbreaking. The callousness of a Japanese expedition who, on their ascent to the summit the following day, passed the Indian climbers, still alive but near death, and refused to aid them in their extremis, is truly shocking.

The author also rehashes the effect of the storm on the south face and the heavy toll of life it exacted there. Jon Krakauer, however, does it better in his gripping book "Into Thin Air". In the final analysis, the author, Matt Dickinson, a novice climber who first ascended Everest that May 1996, comes across as a self-absorbed, selfish sort of lout. Notwithstanding his own personal shortcomings, however, his book still makes for an absorbing read.

The south side of Everest gets most of the press, it would seem. Yet it's the north side that pioneers Mallory and Irvine nearly succeeded in scaling, in 1924; and the North Face had its full share of climbers during the now infamous spring 1996 season. Among those climbers was British film director Matt Dickinson.

From the expedition's start, this is a different adventure than the one so famously recounted by Jon Krakauer in Into Thin Air. Dickinson, pursuing an adventure filming project that has his wife delivering him to the airport in tears, takes his readers along through the lengthy trip that brings Western climbers to Base Camp on Everest's Tibet side. For this 30-something father of three young children, who has never before climbed above 20,000 feet, summiting Everest personally seems like a fool's project. He's there to make a film. Not to come down with a life-threatening case of "Summit Fever" - but that happens to him just the same, in the wake of the May 10 blizzard that catches so many expeditions unaware on both sides of the mountain.

What makes this tale different from other author/climbers' accounts of May 1996 on Everest isn't just the fact that it offers a first-hand narrative of what happened before, during and after the storm on the North Face, where lives were also lost. It becomes truly intriguing as Dickinson's expedition, and others on the North Face that spring, pick up the pieces of their storm-savaged tents and equipment after the disaster. As climbers' bodies fail them, when the weather finally allows the expedition to proceed, and one by one they fall back, Dickinson finds himself joining forces with the only other expedition member able to continue.

This is a grittier work in many ways than those written by more seasoned mountaineers, because so much of what those other authors find familiar - and only to be expected - is new to Dickinson. It's therefore a great read for those of us who love climbing books, but wouldn't dream of ascending a snow-clad peak ourselves. The one thing that annoyed me was the editors' insistence on converting metric measurements for American readers, every single time a measurement was mentioned. We Yanks aren't quite that dumb, I think, and it quickly became so irritating that it kept jolting me out of the story. That's my only real criticism of an otherwise first-class book.

This is an entertaining story that deals with survival and single-mindedness at its core. Others have judgmentally focused on the fact that the author left his protagonist, and ultimately his climbing partner, behind to pursue his own limited chance for the summit. I see this as the crux of the book.

When one is dehydrated, oxygen deprived, undernourished, frightened, and completely fatigued, one may become paranoid and reduced to a state that is completely selfish, being only concerned with their own goals and survival. Someone not in this depleted state is poorly qualified to judge the actions of someone who is.

This fact is similarly true for the author. How quick he was to judge the actions of the Japanese climbers towards the Indian climbers until he found himself in a similar predicament with the Austrian climber.

These comments are not intended to justify the actions of the author. They are simply made in recognition of the fact that a normal caring person, like you or me, could be systematically reduced to this primitive state of mind. In the end, stripped of everything else, nothing mattered except reaching the summit. Lucidly illustrating this point is the genius of this book