Rating: 
Summary: Timeless Tale Of Raw Adventure and Individual Courage!
Review: I remember first reading this book as a teenager in the early 1960s, and the spellbinding story told by authors Charles Huston and Robert Bates of the fateful attempt to first scale K2, the second highest mountain in the world, is one that helped to hook me at that tender age on a lifetime of reading and a love for the great outdoors. The saga of the team's creation, the mustering of the incredible logistics support required to mount a credible assault on the extremely remote peak, and the long and arduous trek into the interior to reach the base camp location is a wonderful adventure story, but only a prelude to the incredible and harrowing events to follow. The assault was a failed effort, and a disastrous experience that left several members of the team dead, and forced the surviving members of the bizarre accident to transport a badly injured colleague perilously back down the treacherous slopes to the base camp far below. The book is a wonderful introduction to the offbeat world of the world of mountaineering, and one that left this reader breathless just in reading about the climber's courage and tenacity under the worst weather conditions imaginable here on earth. So, I was pleasantly surprised to find this book reissued after all these years, and bought myself the hardcover as it is a book I love having both for its content as well as its sentimental value. This is a book one can enjoy oneself and share with any family member with confidence, knowing that even Ernest Hemingway would agree with the verdict that it is a damn fine read. Enjoy.
Rating: 
Summary: Ideal companion volume to Five Miles High
Review: Much like Five Miles High in general subject and tone, K2: The Savage Mountain is a somewhat more exciting book due to the climbers' desperate retreat with the stricken Art Gilkey and Schoening's famous belay. It's well told and provides an interesting look at the large mountaineering expeditions of the past.
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