jancology.com

The book of Richard Sale and John Cleare shows the history of climbing the 14 highest mountains on earth. These 14 are selected because they are at least 8000 meters above sea level. For every single mountain in this category, the authors tell you when the mountain was discovered, how it got its name, when the first climbing attempt was, the first person(s) on top etc…

The book includes also great photos. If you see them you start thinking of joining one of the expeditions. It should be really amazing standing on top of one of those giants. When I was in Nepal we had a beautifull flight near the Mount Everest. It doesn’t look big because all mountains in the region are big! I know know that I should have seen also the Lhotse and the Nuptse as these are in the direct neighbourhood.

In the back of the book all people who have reached the tops are shown. Nice for the statistics but I can only remember 3 climbers:

1. Edmund Hillary
2. Tenzing Norgay
3. Reinhold Messner

Disadvantage is that if you don’t climb, some of the terms the authors use are difficult to understand. Another problem I had was that its quite difficult to relate the routes on the map with the routes on the photos. Also the photos are from different sides of the mountain and different parts of the route. It would be much better to have a map with locations relating to the photos.

Anyway, it was a nice read although most times I skipped a part of the chapter after the first peopel reached the top…