The summit of K2. 1st August 2008. An exhausted band of climbers pump their fists into the clear blue sky - joining the elite who have conquered the world's most lethal mountain. But as they celebrate, far below them an ice shelf collapses and sweeps away their ropes. They don't know it yet, but they will be forced to descend into the blackness with no lines. Of the 30 who set out, 11 will never make it back. Following the stories of climbers from around the world, No Way Down weaves a tale of human courage, folly, survival, and devastating loss. The stories are heart-wrenching: the young married couple whose rope was torn apart by an avalanche, sending the husband to his death; the 61 year-old Frenchman who called his family from near the summit to say he wouldn't make it home. So what drove them to try to conquer this elusive peak? And what went wrong that fateful day?

About the Author

Graham Bowley was born in England in 1968. He is a reporter for the New York Times. He lives in Manhattan with his wife and their two daughters and son.

Reviews

New York Times reporter Bowley attempts to re-create the chaotic events that led to the deaths of 11 climbers on K2 in 2008. Using interviews with the surviving mountaineers, he provides a detailed if sometimes disjointed and detached explanation of the problems, including a serac (ice ridge) collapse and heavy reliance on fixed ropes, that doomed many climbers. Narratives on climbing tragedies are often controversial owing to the conflicting, sometimes unreliable accounts of oxygen-deprived alpinists, so Bowley's decision to present the main portion of his chronicle with relatively few qualifications or alternative points of view seems questionable. Only in the epilog do we learn that pivotal events surrounding the death of Irish climber Gerard McDonnell are highly disputed and have been reported differently in other sources. Bowley's account would seem more complete and fair if he had shown a greater willingness to examine the conflicting versions of aspects of the disaster in the main narrative. -VERDICT As a nonclimber, Bowley can't provide the degree of analysis that can be found in other works, such as expert climber Ed Viesturs's K2: Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain. Best suited for recreational adventure readers and climbing aficionados.-Ingrid Levin, Salve Regina Univ. Lib., Newport, RI Copyright 2010 Reed Business Information.