Savage Summit: The True Stories of the First Five Women Who Climbed K2, the World's Most Feared Mountain [Hardcover]

Jennifer Jordan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 4, 2005

Recounts the true stories of five women who climbed the dangerous K2 mountain, describing how they overcame the harshest climbing and weather conditions of any mountain in the world, addressing controversial issues about gender and mountain climbing, and describing the tragic deaths of three of the women on their descent. 35,000 first printing.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Jordan scales a small summit of her own to share a posthumous glimpse of mountaineers Wanda Rutkiewicz, Liliane Barrard, Julie Tullis, Chantal Mauduit and Alison Hargreaves, plus others who accompanied, aided and tried to thwart them as they attempted to summit K2, which lies on the Pakistan-China border. Each woman's story explores her passion for mountaineering and her own brand of controversy: flirtation, reckless motherhood, lack of practice. Jordan, who tells each woman's tale in the order that each summited K2 (between 1986 and 1995), wisely gives much attention to Rutkiewicz, a beautiful yet willful pioneer who was the first to seek "challenges... that she had been told no woman could ever achieve." Jordan takes on a mammoth task—using journal entries, letters, published biographies, and interviews with fellow climbers, family and friends to distill five divergent lives into one narrative and using her imagination to fill in the blanks—and her prose at times is flat and repetitive. Readers are left with mini-biographies that don't have the dramatic detail to sweep the imagination like the bestseller that inspired Jordan, Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air. For mountain-climbing enthusiasts and women's history buffs, Jordan's well-researched survey is worthwhile reading for the famous reason mountaineers climb: because it's there. Photos. FYI:Jordan wrote a 2003 National Geographic documentary on this subject.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Five women, each with seemingly preternatural abilities to climb, have reached the summit of K2. While not the highest mountain in the world, it is considered the most deadly, hence its earning the name "Savage Mountain." One-tenth as many have climbed it as Everest, but with nearly three times as many deaths per summit. These five women--Polish climber Wanda Rutkiewicz, French climbers Lilane Barrard and Chantal Mauduit, and British climbers Julie Tullis and Alison Hargreaves--so very different from each other, were alike in their strength, ability, determination, and willingness to endure not only the pain of high altitude but also the massive prejudice of the male-dominated climbing world. None of the women climbers were alive when journalist Jordan began this project, but she makes much of her extensive research and reveals just how amazing the climbers' accomplishments are and how very fascinating each of their stories remains, even as she struggles to capture the mountain's all-but-indescribable beauty. Jordan succumbs to the temptation to overwrite, but the stories are genuinely thrilling. Danise Hoover
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; First Edition edition (January 4, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060587156
• ISBN-13: 978-0060587154
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,074,617 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tales of strength and determination, February 20, 2006

By 

M. Skibitsky - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Savage Summit: The True Stories of the First Five Women Who Climbed K2, the World's Most Feared Mountain (Hardcover)

I could not put this book down. I knew nothing of alpine climbing to begin with, but became engrossed by the descriptions of the mountains that inspired the lives of the first five women who climbed K2. Myself, I am inspired by the strength of these women. One reviewer commented that the author seemed to have something against male climbers. I did not get this feeling, but rather felt that she was descrbing things as they were, with men often resenting and feeling threatened by these women's accomplishments. As other reviewers have said, these women were indeed complex. I was struck by the pattern of some of their deaths: continuing on when weather was bad for example, or underestimating their need for gear in their summit bids. But then, at 8,000+ meters in freezing temperatures and with little food to eat and scarce oxygen in the air, one can understand how decisions would be difficult! I suspect that these mistakes are not unique to women, but have claimed the lives of many a climber, male and female alike.

A wonderful read, an inspiration, and a tribute to the awesome power of nature and the strength and fragility of human life.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gripping, June 30, 2009

By 

avidreader (Massachusetts, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Savage Summit: The True Stories of the First Five Women Who Climbed K2, the World's Most Feared Mountain (Hardcover)

Jennifer Jordan writes a book that is impossible to put down. The subject is fascinating, and the story is very thoughtfully written and meticulously researched. Savage Summit is a tribute to women mountaineers who are clearly a unique breed. There is so little written about women in the world of high altitude mountaineering. Fascinating. Anyone who is an endurance athlete, a high achiever, or aspiring to be either must read Savage Summit!

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Could Not Put It Down -- A Keeper to Reread, February 12, 2005

By 

Margot Early (Colorado) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Savage Summit: The True Stories of the First Five Women Who Climbed K2, the World's Most Feared Mountain (Hardcover)

This is a great read. It's not so much a mountaineering book (though it is that) as a book about women, compassionately, respectfully and truthfully portrayed. It's been weeks since I read it, and I still think about it often, still think about these amazing women. I know I'll read this book again. I keep talking about it, recommending it, wanting to give it as a gift.