Fredrik Sträng

So here we go, K2 disaster of 2008. Book is written by one of the climbers who didn't even attempt to summit on that day, because they realized that with the delay it was probably not a good idea. A smart decision. Maybe not the most exciting part of that day.

Because of that most of the book focuses on the ascent, the first death, and then tries to sum up what happened to the others, based on what they've told him (I assume). I watched the movie The Summit, dealing with the same disaster, and it focuses a lot on the climber Gerard McDonnell and his family trying to figure out what exactly happened to him. In this book Gerard is only mentioned in regards to other climbers, and there's not mystery there.

Is it at times a bit confusing, probably because the accident was really confusing, and especially so since Sträng wasn't up there for most of what happened. It did give very good insight to what it's like up there on the mountain in general, which was fun.

I know it's ghost-written and I didn't really expect great writing from it, but even so I found the constant tense-switching a bit annoying and what's up with calling his parents "mother and father"? I've never heard anyone do that, except maybe occasionally. That was weird.

But defintely not the last book I'm reading on the subject of mountaineering accidents ....… (mehr)