David Roberts – ~*LunaSea*~

Viesturs, Ed and David Roberts. K2: Life and Death on the World’s Most Dangerous Mountain. Read by Fred Sanders. Random House Audio, 2010.
Viesturs, Ed and David Roberts. K2: Life and Death on the World’s Most Dangerous Mountain. Broadway Books, 2009.

Reason read: in honor of National Writing Month I chose a nonfiction.

It needs to be said that K2 may be the second highest mountain in the world, but it is arguably the most dangerous mountain to summit. Beyond unpredictable weather and inhospitable traverses, language barriers, varying climbing skills (and, let’s be honest, knowledge), and clashing egos of the climbers make the mountain even more treacherous. Viesturs and Roberts cover six different campaigns to climb K2. At times these campaigns are confusing to read about because they include details from other mountain climbs (like Everest) and the timelines jump around.
The most enjoyable passages were when Viesturs and Roberts outlined the changed in technology and climbing gear. It makes earlier successes of summitting K2 even more impressive. More on that later.

Confessional: this may be just me, but I got the feeling Viesturs was jealous of more successful climbers. The written attempts at modesty ring a little insincere especially when he is constantly inserting his own experiences into the narrative of successful summits that were achieved before he was even born. For example: noting his personal record of traversing 150 miles on cross-country skis when describing the 360 miles the 1938 team had to cover just to get the expedition to climb K2 started. So what? I honestly thought he could not help but insert himself in every campaign, no matter how long ago. The humble brag made me think of Greg Mortenson and his expeditions. I guess the moral of the story is you have to have some kind of ego to survive climbing 8,000 feet into the clouds. But more than the ego was Viesturs apparent disdain for people who want to be first at whatever (first man to climb without oxygen, first woman to climb without a Sherpa…first whatever). Viesturs says a first whatever is not a good enough reason to climb a mountain, but yet he calls the first to get to KS in winter a “triumph.” Seems contradictory to me.
Even worse than the humble bragging and contradictory beliefs, this is the sentence that shocked me the most, “For me, it would be a sad turn of events if helicopters could pluck stranded climbers off the highest summits (p 319). Why? Don’t you mean it would be sad turn of events if inexperienced people climbed only because they banked on a helicopter rescue? To me, it would be a sad turn of events if helicopters could drop people off at the summit. Viesturs honestly seems disappointed that “outsiders” could come to your rescue. Isn’t a helicopter just another advancement in safety like the technological advances of climbing gear, tents, clothing, willow wands, and oxygen supply?

Author fact: in 1992 Ed Viesturs climbed K2 and kept a diary of that expedition. Viesturs also wrote No Shortcuts to the Top. For the Book Lust Challenge I am not reading anything else by Viesturs or Roberts.

Book trivia: K2 has two sections of photography: one in black and one and a latter one in full color.

Playlist: “Wreck of the Old 97” and Ezio Pinza.

Nancy said: Pearl did not say anything specific about K2 except to describe the premise.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” (p 64).

Points Unknown: A Century of Great Exploration. Edited by David Roberts. New York: W.W. Norton, 2000.

This is a thrilling anthology of all the early adventurers right up to modern daredevils. These are the men and women who more than dared, they did. Dared to be first and were, dared to be more than the average traveler and were. Taken straight from diaries, journals, letters, and books written by the explorers themselves there was little David Roberts needed to add to the collection. He let the expeditions come alive through the words of the men and women experiencing them. But, don’t think Roberts sat back and let this book happen without a little craftiness. He had enough sense to cut short the narratives right when the story was about to get interesting. He leaves you with cliff hangers (literally). Did they get out alive? Did they find their friends? You find yourself asking “What happened next?!” and jotting down the original story title just so you can go back and get the rest of the adventure in its entirety.
An aside – Robert Falcon Scott (don’t you just love that dramatic name?) reported temperatures at -27 degrees Fahrenheit at the South Pole. Betram Thomas, traversing the Sahara, complains about the night temps falling to 40 degrees Fahrenheit, “I found it necessary to sleep in all my clothes plus three blankets” (p 87).

Favorite lines, “Humility was the first jungle skill I acquired” (p 280), “Exploding bat shit I was prepared for” (p 380), and “He seems to be a man who has long since lost the need to prove things to anyone” (p 474).

Reason read: June is adventure month. This is the nonfiction selection for the occasion.
~~Author~~ Editor fact: DAvid Roberts also writes.

Book trivia: There are absolutely no photographs in this book. Such a shame.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Adventure By the Book” (p 9).