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A review by ravuri
One Mountain Thousand Summits: The Untold Story of Tragedy and True Heroism on K2 by Freddie Wilkinson
4.0
Few news events captured my attention (much to the chagrin of my advisor who wanted my attention on research) as much as the 2008 K2 disaster in which 11 mountaineers died high on the mountain. Much of the reporting, while utterly captivating, sucked for a variety of reasons. Not the least of which is that none of the journalists could get their stories straight.
Fast forward two years and we now have two books that attempt to fill the serac-size gaps left by the mainstream news. One, "No Way Down", is written by a journalist, Graham Bowley, who originally covered the event in 2008. The Other is "One Mountain Thousand Summits", written by professional mountaineer Freddie Wilkinson. While "No Way Down" is currently the more popular book, OMTS is by far the superior work.
What Wilkinson lacks in prose style compared to Bowley (which is not much), he more than makes up for in depth of research, passion for the subject, great background knowledge of mountaineering, and general competence. The amount of research he performs in trying to piece together an accurate depiction of that week is astounding. At one point, in trying to piece together the final moments of a certain mountaineer, he discovers that an hour difference between photographic evidence and other mountaineers' recollections stemmed from differing daylight savings time in Pakistan compared to the rest of the world. This makes his arguments much stronger, especially when positing certain hypotheses (I won't spoil the fun for you) that aren't yet mainstream media view.
In addition to research, he also exploits his background as a mountaineer. He spends time climbing with and interviewing the Sherpas on the K2 expedition, which is smart because a) they were the strongest climbers on the trip, b) they were the ones saving other climbers and c) their stories were never told to journalists. He recounts the bifurcating histories of siege-style/guided ascents and its alpine counterpart and even compares the biases of newspaper to blog and website reporting.
I have stopped giving stars to books, but I'm going to make an exception here for a couple reasons. First, OMTS is a great book which sadly is being outsold by the inferior but more effectively marketed "No Way Down". Second, there are only 6 ratings (so far) of this book, and one of the poorer ones was left by a person who bestowed her highest rating to a work called "The Bachelorette Party"... Seriously?
The book isn't perfect. The ending sags a bit and Wilkinson, although a mountaineer, is not an 8000m-peak veteran such as Ed Viesturs, who I thought showed a bit more depth in his K2 book. (Of course, my infinite wisdom comes from reading a few mountaineering books and sitting in front of a computer for 14 hours a day). But in all, this is a damn fine book.
Fast forward two years and we now have two books that attempt to fill the serac-size gaps left by the mainstream news. One, "No Way Down", is written by a journalist, Graham Bowley, who originally covered the event in 2008. The Other is "One Mountain Thousand Summits", written by professional mountaineer Freddie Wilkinson. While "No Way Down" is currently the more popular book, OMTS is by far the superior work.
What Wilkinson lacks in prose style compared to Bowley (which is not much), he more than makes up for in depth of research, passion for the subject, great background knowledge of mountaineering, and general competence. The amount of research he performs in trying to piece together an accurate depiction of that week is astounding. At one point, in trying to piece together the final moments of a certain mountaineer, he discovers that an hour difference between photographic evidence and other mountaineers' recollections stemmed from differing daylight savings time in Pakistan compared to the rest of the world. This makes his arguments much stronger, especially when positing certain hypotheses (I won't spoil the fun for you) that aren't yet mainstream media view.
In addition to research, he also exploits his background as a mountaineer. He spends time climbing with and interviewing the Sherpas on the K2 expedition, which is smart because a) they were the strongest climbers on the trip, b) they were the ones saving other climbers and c) their stories were never told to journalists. He recounts the bifurcating histories of siege-style/guided ascents and its alpine counterpart and even compares the biases of newspaper to blog and website reporting.
I have stopped giving stars to books, but I'm going to make an exception here for a couple reasons. First, OMTS is a great book which sadly is being outsold by the inferior but more effectively marketed "No Way Down". Second, there are only 6 ratings (so far) of this book, and one of the poorer ones was left by a person who bestowed her highest rating to a work called "The Bachelorette Party"... Seriously?
The book isn't perfect. The ending sags a bit and Wilkinson, although a mountaineer, is not an 8000m-peak veteran such as Ed Viesturs, who I thought showed a bit more depth in his K2 book. (Of course, my infinite wisdom comes from reading a few mountaineering books and sitting in front of a computer for 14 hours a day). But in all, this is a damn fine book.