Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #20518 in Books
• Published on: 1996-12-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 890 pages

Customer Reviews

Even good for non-climbers...
I read this book after beginning it in a climbing friend's house and not being able to put it down. As a non-climber, I wanted to know "why"! And I still don't know, but I don't think they knew either. But it is a fascinating read, especially when you can read both accounts of the same mountain (e.g. Changabang). Tasker's accounts tend to be much more straight accounts (especially in his earlier books), while Boardman's have more analysis (and also more technical description) but both styles are easy to read and manage to paint a picture of what they're doing to someone like me, with absolutely no knowledge of the sport at all. And having read them, I now have a huge amount of respect for the guys (and girls) who go off to try to do these things.

Fascinating
A full four books to plough through, but well worth the effort. Boardman and Tasker, for me, hold more fascination even than Mallory and Irvine, and you get a very full picture of both of them by seeing them both through their own eyes and through the eyes of the other. Both intelligent, honest, articulate, humorous and aware of their own weaknesses (and strengths), they really come alive in the text. My favourite passages were the two accounts of the ground-breaking Changabang expedition - their first expedition together - where they get to know each other. Boardman was the "superstar", having climbed Everest's South-West Face the previous year, but he clealry felt like a bit of an impostor, and had greater admiration for Tasker's earthier, less well-known but more radical achievements.

A constant subtext for the reader is the knowledge that they died together on Everest's North-East Ridge in 1982 - perhaps by finally pushing themselves beyond the limit. It is far from clear that they knew their limits, and there is an almost tragic element to Tasker's description of the second failed attempt to climb K2, in 1980. He drove himself to exhaustion, was lucky to escape alive, but came out of the experience more convinced than ever that he needed to climb. It almost seems inevitable that, with Boardman to spur him on, he would eventually bite off more than he could chew.

An excellant collection of mountain writing from two greats.
This collection of four books, two each by Tasker and Boardman, is the full monty as far as I am concerned, with respect to British climbing. They lived and died through the golden age and here it is recorded. high on adrenaline, not too technical and typically self-effacing. Savour every word!