Dark Summit: The True Story of Everest's Most Controversial Season

Dark Summit: The True Story of Everest's Most Controversial Season
by Nick Heil

Dark Summit: The True Story of Everest's Most Controversial Season
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Book Summary Information

Author: Nick Heil
Edition: Hardcover
Published: 2008-04-29
ISBN: 0805083103
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.

Book Reviews of Dark Summit: The True Story of Everest's Most Controversial Season

Book Review: Page turner, balanced review
Summary: 5 Stars

I just finished this book, which was interesting enough to finish in under a week. It seemed to be a balanced treatment of the subject, and I liked the contrast of the author just wanting to get back to his tent at base camp rather than continue to look for a drunk, compared to what it must be like in the death zone.


I do disagree with a couple of pages where he waxes for the good old days of gentlemen climbing with high ethics etc. The book about the Americans first successful climb of K2 paints a bit different picture of the good old days. In particular the author of that book relates how they feared they would be doing a body recovery rather than a summit. To their surprise, the "body" was walking down on their way up! He related how they could not help him since they did not bring a rope! Not sure how they intended to do a body recovery. Somehow he walked down, while the other two summited. The rest of that book is filled with intrigue as they jockey for position to be one of the few who might get a summit chance, probably similar to Brice's experience with the British team, which this book just hints at?

Not mentioned when talking about what effort, risk and expense should be made (or can be made) to save someone on Everest, is how some die nearby for lack of a few dollars of antibotics, or at least that is what one person who worked over there in a decompression chamber told us, though even he did not draw that comparison.


Summary of Dark Summit: The True Story of Everest's Most Controversial Season

The inside story of the deadly 2006 climbing season on Everest
On May 15, 2006, a young British climber named David Sharp lay dying near the top of Mount Everest while forty other climbers walked past him on their way to the summit. A week later, Lincoln Hall, a seasoned Australian climber, was left for dead near the same spot. Hall’s death was reported around the world, but the next day he was found alive after spending the night on the upper mountain with no food and no shelter.

If David Sharp’s death was shocking, it was hardly singular: despite unusually good weather, ten others died attempting to reach the summit that year. In this meticulous inquiry into what went wrong, Nick Heil tells the full story of the deadliest year on Everest since the infamous season of 1996. He introduces Russell Brice, the commercial operator who has done more than anyone to provide access to the summit via the mountain’s north side—and who some believe was partly accountable for Sharp’s death. As more climbers attempt the summit each year, Heil shows how increasingly risky expeditions and unscrupulous outfitters threaten to turn Everest into a deadly circus.

Written by an experienced climber and outdoor writer, Dark Summit is both a riveting account of a notorious climbing season and a troubling investigation into whether the pursuit of the ultimate mountaineering prize has spiraled out of control.

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