Climbing the World's 14 Highest Mountains

Rating:
Summary: A perfect package of information and photography
Review: As an armchair fan of mountain climbing I've read many books, and I have found that some can be quite dry reading or the photography to be lacking. This book is the perfect combination of both reading and photograhy that I've ever come across. The history, technical and reference information is very captivating and informative, and the book has tons of incredible photographs, many that I've never seen before. This is definitely my favorite moutain book to date. If you love high altitude mountaineering, then "Climbing the world's 14 highest mountains" will be an absolute must for your collection!

Rating:
Summary: A perfect package of information and photography
Review: As an armchair fan of mountain climbing I've read many books, and I have found that some can be quite dry reading or the photography to be lacking. This book is the perfect combination of both reading and photograhy that I've ever come across. The history, technical and reference information is very captivating and informative, and the book has tons of incredible photographs, many that I've never seen before. This is definitely my favorite moutain book to date. If you love high altitude mountaineering, then "Climbing the world's 14 highest mountains" will be an absolute must for your collection!

Rating:
Summary: High altitude achievement
Review: As climbing books go, this is a star. The content covers the exploration, first ascent and subsequent ascents of the "awesome 14". The main pull is the excellent range of photography throughout the book. Incredible summit shots from Lhotse, Manaslu, and Hermann Buhl's classic ice ax shot from the top of nanga parbat are justification for the purchase alone. The text is well written, informative and generally accurate (with the odd spelling mistake). My only gripe would be with the sections on each mountain covering later ascents. The author is arbitrary in the amount of time and space given to these, but this is the authors perogative. The ascent route maps are good, as are the appendices with full ascent data. All in all, a good read, and a book that will come back off the shelf for reference purposes time and time again

Rating:
Summary: High altitude achievement
Review: As climbing books go, this is a star. The content covers the exploration, first ascent and subsequent ascents of the "awesome 14". The main pull is the excellent range of photography throughout the book. Incredible summit shots from Lhotse, Manaslu, and Hermann Buhl's classic ice ax shot from the top of nanga parbat are justification for the purchase alone. The text is well written, informative and generally accurate (with the odd spelling mistake). My only gripe would be with the sections on each mountain covering later ascents. The author is arbitrary in the amount of time and space given to these, but this is the authors perogative. The ascent route maps are good, as are the appendices with full ascent data. All in all, a good read, and a book that will come back off the shelf for reference purposes time and time again

Rating:
Summary: High altitude achievement
Review: As climbing books go, this is a star. The content covers the exploration, first ascent and subsequent ascents of the "awesome 14". The main pull is the excellent range of photography throughout the book. Incredible summit shots from Lhotse, Manaslu, and Hermann Buhl's classic ice ax shot from the top of nanga parbat are justification for the purchase alone. The text is well written, informative and generally accurate (with the odd spelling mistake). My only gripe would be with the sections on each mountain covering later ascents. The author is arbitrary in the amount of time and space given to these, but this is the authors perogative. The ascent route maps are good, as are the appendices with full ascent data. All in all, a good read, and a book that will come back off the shelf for reference purposes time and time again

Rating:
Summary: Climbing the World's 14 Highest Mountains
Review: Climbing The World's 14 Highest Mountains A History of the 8000-Meter Peaks by Richard Sale and John Cleare

Whether you are an active climber, an armchair mountaineer or interested in the history of climbing you will thoroughly enjoy this book. The book begins with an overview of the difficuties of high altitude climbing and in the history of climbing you will thoroughly enjoy this book. The book begins with an overview of the difficuties of high altitude climbing and mans search for challenges.Next the authors give a history of the discovery of the great mountains, beginning with trade routes and moving on through the surveyors of the late 1700's and early 1800's.

Following then are the chapters for each of the peaks. they are arranged in order of ascent from Annapurna in 1950 to Shisha Pangma in 1964. For each mountain there is a history of its discovery, how it was named, descriptions of the early attempts to climb it, accounts of the first ascent and notable ascents of other routes and ski and snowboard descents.

One of the finest features are the beautiful photographs. There are color photographs of each mountain from several aspects plus historical black and white photos of many of the peaks. There are small inset photos with lines of ascent of the most commonly climbed routes of each peak.

Finally the authors include ascent ststistics including names of those who have made ascents through 1999 and a bibliography of accounts of first ascents.

Rating:
Summary: Climbing the World's 14 Highest Mountains
Review: Climbing The World's 14 Highest Mountains A History of the 8000-Meter Peaks by Richard Sale and John Cleare

Whether you are an active climber, an armchair mountaineer or interested in the history of climbing you will thoroughly enjoy this book. The book begins with an overview of the difficuties of high altitude climbing and in the history of climbing you will thoroughly enjoy this book. The book begins with an overview of the difficuties of high altitude climbing and mans search for challenges.Next the authors give a history of the discovery of the great mountains, beginning with trade routes and moving on through the surveyors of the late 1700's and early 1800's.

Following then are the chapters for each of the peaks. they are arranged in order of ascent from Annapurna in 1950 to Shisha Pangma in 1964. For each mountain there is a history of its discovery, how it was named, descriptions of the early attempts to climb it, accounts of the first ascent and notable ascents of other routes and ski and snowboard descents.

One of the finest features are the beautiful photographs. There are color photographs of each mountain from several aspects plus historical black and white photos of many of the peaks. There are small inset photos with lines of ascent of the most commonly climbed routes of each peak.

Finally the authors include ascent ststistics including names of those who have made ascents through 1999 and a bibliography of accounts of first ascents.

Rating:
Summary: Shoot the proof reader....
Review: This is indeed an excellent book and I agree with the other reviewers. It was somewhat spoilt for me (hence 4 not 5 stars) by the incredible number of spelling mistakes, typos, grammatical errors, punctuation errors etc etc. Sometimes the authors seem to have gone back to older text and just inserted new stuff, sometimes almost out of context. I found myself reading it to find errors and, when found, the urge to highlight them was unbearable, although thankfully I only did this mentally....

This is an expensive book and one should get more than this- it is a great read to learn the history of these ascents and to put them all together in a big picture. Perhaps the author's 'Guinness Book of Records' approach is a little too clinical- a good list of other recommended books would have been great to hear the stories 'from the horse's mouth'.

It's already out of date so maybe a new edition will iron out some of this annoying stuff. As Ed Drummond once said, 'may others come to do the work better' (Avon Gorge Climbing Guide).

Pete Rees (New Zealand)