Annapurna South Face (Tr) (Adrenaline Classics Series)

By Chris Bonington

Book Overview

In 1970, Chris Bonington and his now-legendary team of mountaineers were the first climbers to tackle a big wall at extreme altitude. Their target was the south face of Nepal's Annapurna: 12,000 feet of steep rock and ice leading to a 26, 454-ft. summit. As serious armchair climbers will tell you, Annapurna South Face is better than all but a handful of equally gripping classics. One could also argue that all that has happened in the big mountains in the past 30 years has come out of this expedition and out of this book. Bonington and his team--most of whom subsequently died in the mountains--represented a kind of "greatest generation" of modern mountaineers. They pioneered a new, bolder approach to high altitude climbing, and this book is about how they hit the big time.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1560253150
• ISBN13: 9781560253150
• Release Date: May 2001
• Publisher: Da Capo
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.53 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Somewhat dry and technical - although has some good stories and pictures

This book expects a knowledge of climbing that I didn't have - with numerous terms tied to climbing that were not clear to me. The pictures make up for this and some of the stories are very interesting. Climbing the north face of Annapurna is quite a feat though and based upon that, if you are interested in these sorts of adventure books, I recommend this one.

Bonington at his best

The first ascent of the South Face of Annapurna is told in Bonington's characteristically engaging style. No detail of organization, logistics or communication is left out, with the result that we end up knowing quite a lot about what the climbers had for breakfast and what was said during their radio conversations; but I see this as a good thing. The book is slightly lacking in exciting scenes of actual climbing, as many expedition books unfortunately tend to be, but has plenty of gripping material nevertheless.