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On the morning of 2 June 1953, the day of Queen Elizabeth's
coronation, the first news broke that Everest had finally been
conquered. Drawing on first-hand interviews and unprecedented
access to archives, this is a ground-breaking new account of that
extraordinary first ascent. Revealing that what has gone down in
history as a supremely well-planned expedition was actually beset
by crisis and controversy, Everest 1953 recounts a bygone age of
self-sacrifice and heroism, using letters and personal diaries to
reveal the immense stress and heartache the climbers often hid from
their fellow team members. Charting how the ascent affected the
original team in subsequent years and detailing its immense
cultural impact today, Everest 1953 is the perfect book to
commemorate this remarkable feat of the human will.
Though it remains by far the world's most famous mountain, in
recent years Everest's reputation has changed radically, with long
queues of climbers on the Lhotse Face, lurid tales of frozen
corpses and piles of high altitude trash. It wasn't always like
this though. Once Everest was remote and inaccessible, a mysterious
place, where only the bravest and most heroic dared to tread. The
first attempt on Everest in 1922 by George Leigh Mallory and a
British team is an extraordinary story full of controversy, drama
and incident, populated by a set of larger than life characters
straight out of Boys Own and Indiana Jones. The expedition ended in
tragedy when, on their third bid for the top, Mallory's party was
hit by an avalanche that left seven men dead. Using diaries,
letters, published and unpublished accounts, Mick Conefrey creates
a rich character driven narrative, exploring the motivations and
private dramas of key individuals and detailing the back room
politics and bitter rivalries that lay behind this epic adventure.
K2 is almost 800ft shorter than Everest, yet it's a far harder
climb. Many great mountaineers became obsessed with reaching its
summit, not all of them lived to tell of their adventures.
Capturing the depth of their obsession, the heart-stopping tension
of the climb and delving into the controversy that still surrounds
the first ascent, Mick Conefrey delivers the definitive account of
the 'Savage Mountain'. From drug-addicted occultist Aleister
Crowley to the brilliant but tortured expedition leader Charlie
Houston and, later, the Italian duo who finally made it to the top,
Conefrey resurrects the tragic heroes, eccentric dreamers and
uncompromising rivalries forever instilled in K2's legacy. This is
the riveting, groundbreaking story of the world's deadliest
mountain.
Though it remains by far the world's most famous mountain, in
recent years Everest's reputation has changed radically, with long
queues of climbers on the Lhotse Face, lurid tales of frozen
corpses and piles of high altitude trash. It wasn't always like
this though. Once Everest was remote and inaccessible, a mysterious
place, where only the bravest and most heroic dared to tread. The
first attempt on Everest in 1922 by George Leigh Mallory and a
British team is an extraordinary story full of controversy, drama
and incident, populated by a set of larger than life characters
straight out of Boys Own and Indiana Jones. The expedition ended in
tragedy when, on their third bid for the top, Mallory's party was
hit by an avalanche that left seven men dead. Using diaries,
letters, published and unpublished accounts, Mick Conefrey creates
a rich character driven narrative, exploring the motivations and
private dramas of key individuals and detailing the back room
politics and bitter rivalries that lay behind this epic adventure.
What makes a good explorer? Adaptability, ambition, stamina,
self-confidence, curiosity, optimism, authority--and fund-raising
ability. Though few of us will ever have to face a charging
elephant, or survive solely on penguin stew, when it comes to
project management, crisis aversion, or any number of everyday
problems, there is much we can learn from the larger-than-life
tales of the world's most famous adventurers. Here, award-winning
documentarian Mick Conefrey pulls practical advice from their
original diaries and logs, like how to survive an anaconda attack
(wait until it has swallowed your legs, then reach down and cut its
head off), and how to keep morale up (according to Ernest
Shackleton, "A good laugh doesn't require any additional weight").
In addition to the wonderful characters and stories, this book
offers many lessons on how to set sail without a clear path
home.
Answers to some important questions, courtesy of "The
Adventurer's Handbook: "* How many corpses are believed to be on
Mt. Everest?
Answer: 120 * How is polar bear meat best prepared?
Answer: Raw and frozen.
* What do you do if attacked by a charging lion?
Answer: Stand very still and stare it down. * What should you wear
when crossing a desert?
Answer: Lots of layers--fabric absorbs sweat and prolongs
its cooling action.
Traversing a century of climbing that begins with Victorian
enthusiasts and ends with the conquerors of the Himalayan peaks,
"Mountain Men" tells the stories of the extraordinary men who were
the first to climb the world's best-known mountains: the
Matterhorn, McKinley, Everest, and K2. Edward Whymper's relentless
siege of the Matterhorn ended in controversy when four of his
companions plunged to their deaths an hour after leaving the
summit. In Alaska there have been many disputed claims to the first
conquest of Mt. McKinley, and locals still insist that the honor
belongs to three miners who climbed on a bet, armed with homemade
climbing irons and bags of donuts. For a hundred years mountaineers
have fallen victim to the fatal attraction of K2. An Italian
aristocrat, an American millionaire, and an English Satanist were
among the first to reach its slopes. They found a place of
disappointment and madness; one of them never returned.Accompanied
by unique archival materials, detailed maps, and photographs,
Mountain Men invites us to follow in the footsteps of these
fearless explorers, and tells us their stories with all the romance
and audacity, bravado and suffering, courage and miscalculation
intact.
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