One Mountain Thousand Summits

May 31, 2010
Wilkinson, a veteran alpinist and mountaineering scribe, closely examines the mysterious tragedy that cost the lives of 11 men on the unforgiving K2, the world's second highest mountain, on August 2008, in his new book. Interviewing not only the survivors and the families of the victims but the heroic Sherpa guides in Nepal, he gives the daunting legacy of the challenging terrain and a blow-byblow account, with clinical accuracy and detail, of the disaster that nearly wiped out the international climbing team. Wilkinson also describes what makes an experienced climber challenge himself to risk death using his technical skills, endurance, and mental stamina while battling bone-chilling cold, altitude sickness, and avalanches. In this powerful rendering of a well-publicized grim event, there is so much said about the courage and heroism of the climbers braving these geological wonders and the media's silence over the neglected native saviors.