K2: Life and Death on the World’s Most Dangerous Mountain Audiobook (Free)

An exciting chronicle from the tragedy-ridden history of climbing K2, the world’s most challenging and unpredictable hill, from the bestselling writers of Zero Shortcuts to the very best

At 28,251 foot, the world’s second-tallest hill, K2 thrusts skyward out of the Karakoram Selection of north Pakistan. Climbers respect it as the ultimate accomplishment in mountaineering, with good reason. Four times as lethal as Everest, K2 offers claimed the lives of seventy-seven climbers since 1954. In August 2008 about K2: Existence and Death for the World’s Most Dangerous Hill eleven climbers died in one thirty-six-hour period on K2-the worst single-event tragedy in the mountain’s history as well as the second-worst in the longer chronicle of mountaineering in the Himalaya and Karakoram runs. However summiting K2 remains a cherished objective for climbers from around the world. Before he experienced the challenge of K2 himself, Ed Viesturs, among the world’s premier high-altitude mountaineers, considered it as ‘the ultimate goal of mountaineering.’

In K2: Existence and Death over the World’s Most Harmful Hill, Viesturs explores the exceptional history of the hill and of those who have attempted to conquer it. At exactly the same time he probes K2’s most memorable sagas in an attempt to illustrate the lessons learned by confronting the fundamental questions elevated by mountaineering-questions of risk, ambition, devotion to one’s teammates, self-sacrifice, and the price of glory. Viesturs knows the hill firsthand. He and renowned alpinist Scott Fischer climbed it in 1992 and were nearly killed within an avalanche that sent them slipping to almost particular death. Fortunately, Ed managed to get right into a self-arrest position with his glaciers ax and prevent both his fall and Scott’ s.

Concentrating on seven of the mountain’s most dramatic promotions, from his own troubled ascent towards the 2008 tragedy, Viesturs and Roberts crafts an edge-of-your-seat narrative that climbers and armchair travelers alike will find unforgettably engaging. With photographs from Viesturs’s personal collection and from traditional sources, this is actually the definitive account from the world’s ultimate mountain, and of the lessons that can be gleaned from struggling toward its elusive summit.