It's True! Everest kills (22)Psst! It's true! This is the best book on Everest you'll ever read! What's it like at the summit of Mount Everest? It's so cold that your skin sticks to metal, your breath comes out in crackling ice crystals and your eyes freeze shut. Battle blinding blizzards, run the risk of avalanches and sniff out the elusive hairy yeti. Find out who won the race to the top of the world, and what happened to Mad Maurice's body after he disappeared on the snowy slopes. Join our expedition up the planet's highest mountain ... if you dare! Chill out with frostbitten facts and extreme expeditions. |
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Common terms and phrases
Abuhaidar adventurers Alfred Gregory Andrew Plant Australian avalanche body boots Bourdillon breathe camera carry clothing cold crampons crevasse dangerous degrees Celsius died Edmund Hillary Everest Base Camp exhausted fall flying freeze frostbite George Mallory guiding companies Harrod helicopter high altitude Hillary and Tenzing Hillary Step Himalaya hypothermia ice-axe India Irvine's jetstream John Hunt Kathmandu KHUMBU GLACIER Khumbu Icefall killed kilometres straight lots Lukla Mallory and Irvine Maurice Wilson metres metres high Mount Everest mountain illness Namche Bazaar Nepal North Ridge NORTH-EAST RIDGE ROUTE Norton oxygen tanks peak XV porters reach the summit Reinhold Messner Ridge route rope sea level Sherpa sleeping sliding slopes South Col South Summit South-east Ridge Stephen Venables STRU summit of Mount Summit Ridge Swiss climbers temperature Tenzing Norgay there's thin air Tibet Tim Macartney-Snape Tom Bourdillon top of Mount TRUE EVEREST walk Western Cwm wind yaks Yeti
Popular passages
Page 32 - My eyes became fixed on one tiny black spot silhouetted on a small snowcrest beneath a rock-step in the ridge, and the black spot moved. Another black spot became apparent and moved up the snow to join the other on the crest. The first then approached the great rock-step and shortly emerged at the top ; the second did likewise. Then the whole fascinating vision vanished, enveloped in cloud once more.
Page 26 - ... only a few yards behind him. I made one or two attempts to breathe, but nothing happened. Finally, I pressed my chest with both hands, gave one last almighty push - and the obstruction came up. What a relief! Coughing up a little blood, I once more breathed really freely - more freely than I had done for some days. Though the pain was intense, yet I was a new man, and was soon going down at a better pace than ever to rejoin Norton. He had thought I was hanging...
Page 30 - This is going to be more like war than mountaineering. I don't expect to come back.
Page 26 - Somewhere about 25,000 feet high, when darkness was gathering, I had one of my fits of coughing and dislodged something in my throat which stuck so that I could breathe neither in nor out. I could not, of course, make a sign to Norton, or stop him. for the rope was off now; so I sat in the snow to die whilst he walked on, little knowing that his companion was awaiting the end only a tew yards behind him.
Page 26 - Norton or stop him, so I sat down in the snow to die while he walked on. I made one or two attempts to breathe . . . finally I pressed my chest with both hands, gave one last almighty push - and the obstruction came up.