Among the mountaineering elite, K2 is the ultimate challenge. Everest is higher -- by just 785 feet -- but K2 is steeper, tougher, and deadlier: Everest has been summitted more than 1,300 times, while only 183 men and 5 women have reached K2's fearsome peak since it was first conquered in 1954, and of those, at least 21 never made it back down.
On her first effort in 1998, Howkins became one of the handful of women to attempt the peak. On her second attempt in 2000, she was determined to once again climb this daunting peak alpine-style -- without the aid of porters or supplemental oxygen -- a feat accomplished by very few mountaineers. She knew the risks as well as anyone...but even her long experience could not prepare her for what happened high on K2's deadly slopes.
Highlighted by evocative photographs, K2 is a compelling chronicle of high-mountain adventure and personal achievement. It's also an unusually articulate meditation upon risk, reward, and responsibility -- made all the more poignant and immediate by the fact that only a few years ago, Alison Hargreaves's death on K2's flanks provoked a storm of controversy about the morality of trying to combine motherhood and a world-class mountaineering career. "I have to be ready for whatever challenge I may face," writes Howkins, a single mother, as she explores the ethics of her passion. "My daughter gives me a desperate kind of strength."
In 1997, Howkins applied for a permit to climb Kanchenjunga, or K2the "savage mountain"the second highest peak in the world at 8,616 meters (or 28,267 feet) and in many ways more difficult than Everest. "It is the ultimate goal for many climbers, and reaching the summit is akin to winning the Olympic gold," writes Howkins, the first American woman to reach the base of K2's summit peak. The first three-quarters of this fascinating but uneven book trace Howkins's journey from planning to final descent. Howkins's photographic recall of events, places and details of what climbers endure yields statements like "glove fuzz and sheer exhaustion and carbon monoxide poisoning from cooking inside a tent are not the main obstacles to eating.... the higher you go, the more your appetite diminishes." Unlike some swooning climber-authors, Howkins doesn't romanticize her struggles. ("I once heard someone define Himalayan climbing as the `art of suffering.' I understand the suffering part, but I'm not sure I fully grasp the artistic challenge.") But her book is flawed by the structural conceit of telling her tale to a hitchhiker. The strength of her story (including an increasingly psychotic husband-climbing partner) is better served when she simply tells it, sans hitchhiker, in the last quarter of the book, which recounts an unsuccessful attempt up K2 in 2000. However, this very personal account of the climbing experience, including the rampant sexism that pervades the climbing community, is an important addition to the ever-growing genre. 16 pages of photos not seen by PW. (May)Forecast: To coincide with the release of this book about adventure from a woman's point of view, CNBC will air a National Geographic Explorer special entitled Surviving K2, followed by coverage by the networks. Meanwhile, the author will drum up sales in a cross-country tour with stops in Boston, Seattle, New York, Denver, Berkeley, Boulder and Portland, Ore.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
K2 is the second highest mountain peak on Earth and one of the most remote and dangerous climbs. Howkins, a professional climber, attempted recently to be the first American woman to reach its top. In this nonlinear narrative of her climb as a member of the American K2000 expedition, she describes the dangers of mountaineering and discusses the deaths of fellow climbers, avalanches, oxygen deprivation, and what it means to be a woman in a predominantly male pursuit. Drifting off into memories, she reveals her feelings about past events and interweaves them with philosophical thoughts on mountain climbing. The reader meets a person who can casually recount horrific details of her dangerous profession but is then derailed by events from everyday life, such as her relationship with an abusive husband. Although Howkins never did reach the summit, she was the first woman to reach the base of the summit pyramid on Kanchenjunga, the third highest mountain in the world. This book is released in conjunction with a National Geographic television film of her participation in the American K2000 expedition. Despite the occasional lapses in the flow of the storyline one can't always easily tell what happened when this is a deeply satisfying read. Alison Hopkins, Queens Borough P.L., Jamaica, NY
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Among the most critical equipment carried on any mountain-climbing venture is the psychological baggage of the climbing team. Howkins offers rare insight into what it is like to be one of the few females who excel at this predominantly male sport. Her book reveals a little-seen side of the sport: the emotions and often complex relationships of the climbers. Using the fictional mechanism of describing her adventures to a hitchhiker, the author reveals the exhilaration and messiness of a climbing expedition. She describes efforts to be the first female climber to scale K2, which is acknowledged to be a more arduous and difficult ascent than Mount Everest. Against the background of such personal problems as a disintegrating marriage and a two-year-old daughter left behind in the U.S., the book illuminates what it is like to be on an expedition in which team members die by accidents and avalanches.
Eric RobbinsCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
