Customer Reviews

Shisha Pangma: The Alpine Style First Ascent of the Southwest Face

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I expected this book to be excellent, given its subject and authors, but I was disappointed with it. Like many books about Himalayan expeditions, Shishapangma focused on disagreements within the team. But whereas in other cases this has been amusing or affecting, here it seemed dreary, and unfortunately tinged with misogyny. The climbing itself is described in rather dull terms; one gets little sense of excitement or danger. Scott's informational/philosophical postscripts may actually be the best part of the book. Don't read this one unless you're studying the route or are a real completist.

The 1984 Boardman-Tasker Award was given to this book about the 1982 Shishapangma expedition to the 14th tallest mountain.

I concur with the choice.(Pete Boardman and Joe Tasker were lost on the North-East ridge of Everest in 1982. Their lives and writings have since been honored by the Boardman-Tasker Award.)

Co-author Alex MacIntyre was killed by stonefall on Annapurna in 1982 after the Shishapangma trip, but before the book came out.

I judge mountaineering books by their insightful quotations, both in terms of quality and frequency. This is poignant:

"By now Alex's mother will have put up a stone at Annapurna Base Camp which reads:
It is better to live one day as a tiger than a hundred as a sheep."
Roger Baxter-Jones in
Scott & MacIntyre, The Shishapangma Expedition.