Everest the Hard Way - Softcover

It's a cult! I had the good opportunity to read in its original flavour of hard bound publication borrowed from an avid climber himself. Anyhow, this paperback got me interested and I went for this adventure once again. Get up is small but with nothing left back from the hard bound edition. Paper quality is a bit flimsy and prone to tear with careless use. The color plates are good as ever but the technical drawings of the instruments and stuff have become extra small and almost illegible (but that hardly matters as it serves no purpose now - other than mountaineering enthusiasts' trivia). With a foreward of Lord Hunt, Bonnington's lucid story telling is at its best. The wonderful part is incorporating others' diary entries on a similiar event, which readily gives a movie like effect. Took it on a trip recently and finished it all over again. I suggest, if you are old school about mountaineering, you would love it. Everest, as always, will be hard way. But, for someone who is daydreaming these exhilarating adventures - it is the only way!! --By Dr. Kinjal Mukhopadhyay on 20 August 2014

The story of the British expedition to the Southwest face of Everest by the expedition leader Chris Bonington. The story is well told and very interesting. Bonington intermingles his own thoughts with the views of other members of the team. One of the better books on an Everest expedition I have read. I found it much more interesting then Tom Hornbein's "The West Ridge." Bonington includes many Appendix sections, almost half the book, on the logistics of the expedition. You could run your own expedition by just reading the appendixes. A classic in the Everest pantheon. --By A Customer

The story of the British expedition to the Southwest face of Everest by the expedition leader Chris Bonington. The story is well told and very interesting. Bonington intermingles his own thoughts with the views of other members of the team. One of the better books on an Everest expedition I have read. I found it much more interesting then Tom Hornbein's "The West Ridge." Bonington includes many Appendix sections, almost a third of the book, on the logistics of the expedition. You could run your own expedition by just reading the appendixes. A classic in the Everest genre. --By A Customer

When Chris Bonington and his team set out in August 1975 t climb the South West Face of Everest, they were attempting the ultimate challenge of mountaineering- to conquer the steepest and highest face in the world. Two months later, overcoming daunting physical conditions and massive psychological pressures, the lead climbers scaled 1,000 sheer feet of the previously unconquered Rock Band to reach the summit- the hard way Drawing on first-hand accounts of his fellow climbers, Chris Bonington vividly portrays the tensions, emotions and, on one occasion, bitter personal tragedy behind the most spectacular ascent in the history of climbing.