Notes

Contents include: Because It's There -- Not Like Other Mountains -- From Another World -- How Small Indeed -- Boys to Men -- The Siege -- Puppet Master -- A Perfect Day to Summit -- Deserted -- The Most Beautiful Monument -- No Superstars -- Back to the Mountain -- Ghosts of K2 -- Three Good Days -- In the Eye of the Storm -- The Death Zone -- The Fall -- Fellowship of the Rope.
Summary: In 1953, as two men summit Mt. Everest for the first time, Charlie Houston and a team of mountaineers carve a path up the second-highest peak on Earth: the deadly K2. For Houston, reaching the top of K2 is a lifelong dream, an obsession that began 15 years earlier on his first expedition there. Since then, another American expdition has fallen apart on the remote, windswept mass of rock and ice. Now, Houston's team follows in their tracks. With the summit in their grasp, a vicious storm and a sudden illness puts their own expedition on the edge of disaster, turning their quest to conquer a mountain into one of the most daring rescue missions ever. Three expeditions and a high-mountain rivalry. Three attempts at K2, one of the most grueling challenges the planet has to offer.