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The Summit

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The Summit

By: Pemba Gyalje Sherpa, Pat Falvey
Narrated by: Pat Falvey
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About this listen

On 1 August, 2008, 18 climbers from across the world reached the summit of K2, the world's second-highest and most dangerous mountain - a peak that claims the life of one in every four climbers who attempt it. Over the course of 28 hours K2 had exacted a deadly toll: 11 lives were lost in a series of catastrophic accidents.

Over the course of three days, a Nepalese Sherpa called Pemba Gyalje, along with five other Sherpas, was at the center of a series of attempts to rescue climbers who had become trapped in the Death Zone, unable to escape its clutches and debilitated by oxygen deprivation, chronic fatigue, delirium and a terrifying hopelessness.

The tragedy became a controversy as the survivors walked from the catastrophe on the mountain into an international media storm, in which countless different stories emerged, some contradictory and many simply untrue.

Based on Pemba Gyalje's eyewitness account and drawing on a series of interviews with the survivors which were conducted for the award-winning documentary The Summit.

The Summit: How Triumph Turned to Tragedy on K2's Deadliest Days is the most comprehensive interpretation of one of modern-day mountaineering's most controversial disasters.

©2014 Beyond Endurance Publishing (P)2014 Beyond Endurance Publishing Travel Writing & Commentary Survival

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All stars
Most relevant
All disaster books have a voyeuristic element but I felt this lacked anything to lift it above that level.

Into Thin Air is brilliant in its description of a total failure in leadership. Touching the Void is about survival and extremes of bravery. Summit disects a disaster in a very comprehensive manner, but I found it offered little more than a close up view of what went wrong at the serac.

Loads of better mountaineering books available.

Rubber-necking at the serac

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found it hard to get into as the narrators performance was quiet poor i felt.

I love this subject but the narrator ruined it

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Pat Falvey is a great writer but those who don't have an ear for the Cork accent may struggle with the narration. I'm not complaining because narrators cost money and the audience of this book was likely to be relatively limited so they Cleary decided to narrate themselves. I have many friends from Cork so I have no issue but it might be a bot tricky for those who don't know the accent.
great book, Pemba is an awesome specimen of Homosapiens sapiens. if you are a student of organisation dynamics, this story is why groupthink in leadership teams is catastrophic.

great book but..

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The Summit is a really good story but the author should of given the job of narration to someone else. I found it a struggle to understand his broad accent, and the speed at which he read meant I needed to skip back on occasions to pick up what had been said.
I'm an armchair adventurer so can't criticise the climbers but there were times when I was saying 'turn back' or ' what are you thinking' !
The author showed his friend ( who died on the mountain ) real loyalty in telling the account that he did. The K2 tragedy is another incident that requires us to see all sides of a story instead of apportioning blame or telling half truths.

really good story but......

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this was my first ever audio book. I loved this story and it was very easy to follow all the different characters in audio. at first I was worried I might not understand well, since I am not native English speaker, but that was not the case at all. it is very accessible. And the book itself is amazing. Great respect for Pemba!

Great story and easy to follow in audio

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