What drew me to this book about K2 is that I am just sick of Everest-this, Everest-that and I wanted to hear about a different mountain for once. This book will spoil all other K2 books though, so be ye warned (maybe read those other K2 books first).

The author Ed Viesturs is a professional mountaineer who has summited all fourteen 8,000m peaks. Besides telling of his own experiences on K2, which is what I had originally thought the entire book was about, Viersturs pulls together the stories of all significant expeditions onto the mountain and gives his professional insights about what went wrong, what he would have done, etc. And what stories there are to be had! K2 is further north and more remote than Everest, which results in much colder climbing, less knowledge about the mountain, and less people on the mountain at a time. The death rate of K2 climbers is 1 in 5; Everest is 1 in 19.

There are three main categories of problems that kill people on K2:
1. Nature. You can't predict storms, avalanches, hidden pits, melting ice, etc.
2. Unpreparedness. Surprisingly to me, a lot of "experts" who have attempted K2 were simply not physically, technically, or materially prepared for it and made many stupid mistakes. I realize that altitude affects the decision-making abilities of people, but there were many just plain bad judgement calls. For example, two guys trying to get back down off the mountain would have been fine just downclimbing. Instead, they decided to repel off of a ski pole. Yes. A ski pole.
3. Ego. Gosh, what is with mountaineers and their egos?? Viesturs frequently points out dangerous decisions that were made with only pride as the explanation. From individual decisions to a complete breakdown in teamwork that led to death, it seems that ego is the number 1 killer here.

The reason why I said this book will spoil other K2 books for you is, besides the spoilers in the expedition stories, this book draws from a variety of sources (articles, letters, conversations) to get a well-rounded picture. Most books are written from the perspective of just one side... but there is always another side. I found it very helpful that the authors did all the leg work of gathering various sides to the stories and Viesturs's professional insights to be able to make an educated guess about what really happened up above 20,000 feet. Some people think this results in the book being a gossip rag, but I found it all super interesting. If lack of teamwork and ego are the top killers on the mountain, gossip is an integral part of understanding the mistakes. I want to read more mountaineering stories, but I will be thinking, "Yes, but what REALLY happened??" the whole time.

Near the end of the book, Viesturs laments the commercialization of mountain climbing and his fears of how that will change K2. Well, he wrote that nearly a decade ago, and you can see online that his fears have become much of a reality. A quick google search brought up many results for commercial tours that made summiting K2 seem like an adventure vacation: personal tent—no sharing required! 50kg of personal baggage permitted! Team chef that prepares three tasty meals per day! 1-1 Sherpa! I am not kidding you. Google it yourself. While I would not want to pay upwards of $40,000 to go on a torture fest for 2 months, it does make me sad that such a majestic thing has become so trivialized. It seems like not much is left of the sacred in the world.

One last small thing I wanted to bring up: Viesturs names the Sherpa in the stories when possible, but sadly many of the men and women who are most deserving of our awe remain anonymous to history.