Despite the dozens, if not hundreds, of mountaineering tales that talk about the ‘conquest’ of mountains, especially the fourteen eight-thousanders that are the world’s tallest mountains, no one ‘conquers’ them. Not the mountaineers who climbed them first, who ‘deflowered’ their ‘virginity,’; not the ones who climb them by new routes, each selected to be harderContinue reading “No One ‘Conquers’ An Eight-Thousander”
Tag Archives: K2
Deadly Success: ‘The Summit’ On the 2008 K2 Disaster
Anatomies of disasters always provoke the most detailed of analyses for understandable reasons: as the hoary proverb has it, success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan. Disclaimers of paternity are thus to be expected when ugly offspring makes their appearance. In Nick Ryan‘s The Summit, the story of the deadliest day–1 August 2008–onContinue reading “Deadly Success: ‘The Summit’ On the 2008 K2 Disaster”
Brawling at Twenty Thousand Feet: The Everest Punchup
The high-altitude slopes of the world’s highest mountain–Mt. Everest–might seem like a strange place to indulge in fisticuffs but that’s precisely what happened on April 27: It takes a lot to rattle Swiss climber Ueli Steck….on April 27, while attempting to climb Mount Everest, it wasn’t the mountain that nearly killed him but a mob ofContinue reading “Brawling at Twenty Thousand Feet: The Everest Punchup”
Of Mountains, “Assault” and “Conquest”
A common reaction of mine when watching mountaineering documentaries is distaste at the accompanying linguistic package: the language of “assault” and “conquer”, directed against and at the mountain. Though many mountaineers have self-consciously forsworn such language (Ed Viesturs makes a point of noting such language in his books even though at times he slips backContinue reading “Of Mountains, “Assault” and “Conquest””
Samir Chopra 