(Larger Image)
|
K2: One Woman's Quest for the Summit (Adventure Press)
by Heidi Howkins
Product Group: Book
Publisher: National Geographic (2001-04-01)
ISBN: 0792279964
EAN: 9780792279969
Dewy Decimal #: 796.522092
Paperback: 336 pages
Release Date: 2001-04-01
Condition: Very Good
Comments: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed!
|
Editorial Reviews
|
Product Description
Among the mountaineering elite, K2 is the ultimate challenge. Everest is higher -- by just 785 feet -- but K2 is steeper, tougher, and deadlier: Everest has been summitted more than 1,300 times, while only 183 men and 5 women have reached K2's fearsome peak since it was first conquered in 1954, and of those, at least 21 never made it back down. On her first effort in 1998, Howkins became one of the handful of women to attempt the peak. On her second attempt in 2000, she was determined to once again climb this daunting peak alpine-style -- without the aid of porters or supplemental oxygen -- a feat accomplished by very few mountaineers. She knew the risks as well as anyone...but even her long experience could not prepare her for what happened high on K2's deadly slopes. Highlighted by evocative photographs, "K2" is a compelling chronicle of high-mountain adventure and personal achievement. It's also an unusually articulate meditation upon risk, reward, and responsibility -- made all the more poignant and immediate by the fact that only a few years ago, Alison Hargreaves's death on K2's flanks provoked a storm of controversy about the morality of trying to combine motherhood and a world-class mountaineering career. "I have to be ready for whatever challenge I may face," writes Howkins, a single mother, as she explores the ethics of her passion. "My daughter gives me a desperate kind of strength."
|
Amazon.com Review
For years Heidi Howkins, a young climber, nursed an ambitious dream: to reach the summit of K2--the world's second-tallest and one of its least accessible peaks--without using oxygen. She eventually did, though not without plenty of scary moments and much cause for reflection. Howkins, addressing the reader through stories told to a bemused hitchhiker, reports much more than the sheer achievement of her ascents of K2, notable though they were. Along the way she tells him, and us, of a failed marriage, of the logistical nightmares that accompany any expedition to remote places, of the endless conflicts that can ensue when climbing partners are not carefully vetted. As the lone woman on her K2 climbs, Howkins had more than the usual problems to contend with, though those problems--bad weather, scary bus rides along the Karakoram Highway, the constant presence of death--were hard enough. All of them get an airing in Howkins's book, but for all that, her sense of adventure far outweighs the many downsides. Why take on such a challenge in the first place? A friend warned her about trying to explain, and Howkins toys with a few explanations: the rush gained by conquering fear, denying the fragility of human existence, and "embracing survival with gusto." In the end, though, her best explanation is this: "When you get to the top of K2, there's nowhere left to go. There is a cessation of passion, of the desire to move forever upwards. There is emptiness, and the closure of a circle. You are back where you started. You're at peace." --Gregory McNamee
|
|
|