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The South
Asian Life & Times - SALT |
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Cover Story
Tech Stories 2011 Adventure &
Sports
Environment
Vishnu - Hinduism's
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SALT Book Picks 2011
By Graham Bowley New York Times reporter Graham Bowley has written an
immensely gripping account of the front-page tragedy that hit the headlines
on August 2, 2008. It was the deadliest day ever on the world’s
second-highest mountain. On the early morning of August 1, 2008, while it
was still dark, 30 climbers from around the world – among them Koreans,
Serbs, Dutch, Americans, and Sherpas - left their high altitude camp to head
for the 28,251 feet K2 summit.
It
was a crowded field for the killer mountain. They were hoping to return
before nightfall. In the early afternoon, delayed by a traffic jam at
Bottleneck on their way to the summit, two men fell to their deaths. A few
climbers, wisely, turned back – they realised it would get very late on the
way back. But 18 climbers went ahead and reached the top of K2 very late in
the day. Only nine returned to tell the tale. While the climbers were on top
of the most dangerous mountain in the world, a giant serac, a few metres
below them collapsed, and wiped out the fixed ladders and ropes and also set
the stage for avalanches.
“An
already risky descent became a nightmarish free-for-all.”
Eleven people were killed that day.
The survivors had a gruesome tale to tell. The Dutch climber Wilco Van Rooijen, endured two
nights in the Death Zone- above 25,000 feet. Lost and alone, he managed to
call his wife in Netherlands, who then contacted colleagues in the
Netherlands, who in turn tracked his cell phone coordinates, conveyed his
whereabouts to the team and only then could Pemba Gyalje and Cas van de
Gevel rescue him. Through interviews with survivors and families
Bowley has relived that day in real time in his account of that fatal day.
The proof-reading of the book could have been better, but it doesn’t really
interfere in the reading of the engrossing book, which is difficult to put
down. It has been estimated that one in every four
climbers to summit K2 dies, compared with one in 19 on Everest. It is the
descent that is more dangerous.
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