K2, The Savage Mountain is a thrilling tale of the 1953 attempt by a team of
Americans to be the first to reach the summit of the second highest mountain in
the world. Along the way they endured terrible struggles, sickness, frostbite,
starvation, storms, avalanches, and mental anxiety that would stretch any man
to his limit. In fact, these challenges very nearly cost them their lives. Though
they were not successful in their summit attempt, what they achieved under the
most trying of circumstances is worthy of recognition. Upon returning to base
camp, I don’t believe any of them felt that they had failed.
One thing this book taught me
was the importance of establishing camps during a summit attempt. In the past I
have often wondered, why place 7 or 8 camps all up the side of a mountain, making
innumerable relay climbs and turning a summit attempt into a three week ordeal
under the best of circumstances? Why not just take two guys, three days worth
of food, and make a blitz for the top? The explanation given in this book is that
the weather is so unpredictable when you reach such high altitudes that you may
be stranded at one of your camps for two weeks before you have an opening of
two days to reach the next camp, or the summit. These men were certainly lucky
they had properly established their camps. They ended up being stranded in a
storm for ten days at an altitude of 25,500 feet before they were forced to
turn back, making a daring escape attempt while the storm still raged.
They were forced to abandon
their attempt at the summit because one of their team, Art Gilkey, became
incredibly sick, with blood clots in both lungs. Unable to walk, they were
forced to carry him down the mountain wrapped up in a sleeping bag. At one
point during the descent an avalanche fell down over the top of Gilkey and his
climbing partner, who were held to the mountain by their ropes as the snow
pounded over and around them. Not long after this event, the team suffered an
accident that nearly killed them all. The men were tackling a particularly
difficult section of the climb when one of them slipped and started falling,
pulling his partner off of his feet. This pair was independently roped and
would have fallen together off of the side of the mountain, but somehow they
became tangled with another pair of climbers, pulling both of them off of their
feet as well. These four men fell into a fifth climber, tangling him in their
ropes and pulling him down the slope. Amazingly, this fifth climber was tied in
to Gilkey, who, resting in his sleeping bag was being belayed by the seventh
member of the climbing team from 60 feet up the mountain. This one man, Peter
Schoening, held all six of his companions on the end of a single rope and
stopped all of them from falling off of “a slanting Empire State Building six times
as high as the real one.” In the end the team made it safely down the mountain,
with the exception of Art Gilkey, whose inexplicable disappearance undoubtedly
saved all of their lives.
At many points during this
book I had to stop and admire the strength and bravery of these men. They were
attempting something that had never been done before, and they seemed to have
all the cards stacked against them. Time after time they faced seemingly
insurmountable obstacles, and they pulled together and made it through. That
being said, at other times while reading this book I had to stop and ask myself
the question, are these men crazy? This is absolutely insane what they are
doing. Why would anyone leave the safety of their home and travel halfway
around the world to climb a mountain that kills one man for every four who
reach the summit? Why even try to climb these mountains at all? I love the
answer that Houston and Bates give at the beginning of the book.
“In the year that has passed since our ordeal we have
been asked that question many times and have answered it in many ways. No
answer is complete or satisfactory. Perhaps there is no single answer; perhaps
each climber must have his own reasons for such an effort. The answer cannot be
simple; it is compounded of such elements as the great beauty of clear cold
air, of colors beyond the ordinary, of the lure of unknown regions beyond the
rim of experience. The pleasure of physical fitness, the pride of conquering a
steep and difficult rock pitch, the thrill of danger—but danger controlled by
skill—are also there. How can I phrase what seems to me the most important
reason of all? It is the chance to be briefly free of the small concerns of our
common lives, to strip off nonessentials, to come down to the core of life
itself. Food, shelter, friends—these are the essentials, these plus faith and
purpose and a deep and unrelenting determination. On great mountains all
purpose is concentrated on the single job at hand, yet the summit is but a
token of success, and the attempt is worthy in itself. It is for these reasons
that we climb, and in climbing find something greater than accomplishment.”
My rating: 7 out of 10
My rating: 7 out of 10
