K2: The Story of the Savage Mountain. Jim Curran. The

K2: The Story o f the Savage Mountain. Jim Curran. The Mountaineers,
Seattle, 1995. 271 pages. Black-and-white photographs, 16 in color, seven
maps and topographical drawings. $24.95.
Many are the books about individual expeditions to K2, the world’s sec­
ond highest summit. In recent years that number has proliferated in propor­
tion to the reputation for ferociousness the mountain has earned. But there
has hitherto been no book that tells K2’s full story and that includes between
its covers the sum of the ordeals and sacrifices endured by the people of
many beliefs, languages, races and nationalities who have been attracted to
K2 as by a magnet. Jim Curran’s compact, informative and well-rounded
account fills the gap.
In writing what clearly started out as a history, Curran, whether delib­
erately or not, has achieved three objectives of value to the reader: First, he
makes available an almost encyclopedical and well-organized mass of histo­
ry. Second, his text introduces a powerful cautionary element badly needed
for future visitors to the mountain, and which contains valuable objective
lessons. And third, he supplies a great deal of statistical data not previously
available in any one volume.
Curran is well-equipped for his task. He has climbed on K2, albeit not
to the top. He is the author of K2: Triumph and Tragedy, the intricate story
of the multiple catastrophes of 1986. He has the qualifications of a good
writer and he is also an excellent photographer. Equally significant, he is the
veteran of much expeditionary climbing and his personal experiences have
long since taught him what the game is all about. Whenever possible he
interviews eye witnesses to important events, and where this is not possible
he refers to the most truthful and accurate written records he can find.
As writer and chronicler, Curran’s real strength lies in his ability to ana­
lyze complicated and unusually tangled events, to unravel the strands and to
describe situations in straightforward terms that can be understood by every­
one. As might be expected, Curran’s story commences with the discovery of
K2 by Lieutenant Montgomerie in 1856 and continues to the present (1995).
Curran overlooks no expedition, however little known or unsuccessful. This
attention to detail continues right up to the book’s end, when the prolifera­
tion of incidents begins to overwhelm the lofty bastions of K2 and tests even
Curran’s almost unlimited resources. But somehow he manages to keep the
growing standing-room-only situation well under control.
As stated earlier, this book is more than a mere chronology of half-for­
gotten facts bundled together, so to speak, under a single roof. There is
almost no end to poignant moments with their hard decisions, acts of chival­
ry and iron courage. Curran pulls no punches when he underscores what K2
has exacted from its visitors: the desperate efforts of the Houston expedition
to challenge the impossible and rescue Art Gilkey; A1 Rouse’s sacrifice of
his own life in order to keep his companions alive; and other, almost equal­
ly dramatic scenes. The reader cannot help but emerge from the text with
sentiments of awe and humility.
And such feelings are precisely those needed for anyone who may ever
try to reach K2’s summit. Sooner or later, no matter how skillful the climber
may be, a narrow escape might well be called for. Any feeling of hubris,
Curran intimates, will inevitably compound the risks of catastrophe, for
more than any other mountain, K2 is a killer, even by its least dangerous
route.
Take a look for a moment at the appendices where all the skeletons are
buried. They tell us that since 1939, when a world-class but misguided
mountaineer thought he could safely lead a kindly, myopic and thoroughly
incompetent companion to the top, 113 people have trod the summit — but
there have been 37 deaths. Thus for every two persons to succeed a third has
died. You think that’s a shocker? Read on! Dig down a bit more into the
archives and you discover that virtually all those who have stepped onto K2
since World War II have been world class mountaineers with awesome
climbing records. K2 is no picnic, nor is world-class status of much signifi­
cance as one passes the 27,000-foot level on K2, for here even the best of us
are testing the outer limits of human physiology. Here a dulling of the mind
takes over, which can prove fatal in delicate places. Again and again, Curran
insists that the moment of triumph is also that of peril: above a certain alti­
tude no one can survive for long. So if you reach the top, turn around imme­
diately, whatever the temptations to linger on the summit. And then go down,
down, down as fast and as long as conditions permit.
Will the climbers of tomorrow who read this book heed Curran’s warn­
ings? If the answer is “yes,” Curran will have rendered the climbing com­
munity a valuable public service. It seems more likely, however, that some
of us will perpetuate our own follies and at the crucial moment throw cau­
tion to the winds in an effort to get to the top. Indeed, were he younger, this
reviewer would perhaps succumb himself to the enticements and enchant­
ments of possible victory. Temptation for mountaineers, as with all men, is
hard to overcome.
Inevitably any book that packs between its covers more than a century
of human activity and hundreds of players will contain errors. This review­
er has already drawn the author’s attention to some of these. One concerns
an incident on Devil’s Tower, Wyoming, which the author might have stud­
ied more carefully in order to get his facts straight. More serious is the impli­
cation that the 1939 (also the 1938) American expedition travelled by rail
from Rawalpindi to Srinagar in Kashmir. The rail service did not exist, and
both Jack Durrance’s and George Sheldon’s diaries state clearly that the
party went by motor, and that the experience was a bit dicey. This reviewer,
who has a bias about the 1939 expedition, would also have appreciated more
discussion about the philosophical attitudes toward mountaineering that sep­
arated Wiessner from Durrance — the former the innovative amateur, the lat­
ter the professional guide. But in general the errors and omissions are few
and trivial.
This reviewer knows it is not easy to write about K2 any more than it is
to climb it. Almost all the events that have taken place on its flanks have
been difficult to describe, let alone analyze. As Curran knows there are resid­
ual mysteries that neither he nor anyone else will ever resolve — this start­
ing back in the days of Aleister Crowley. Curran, however, has succeeded in
bringing the mountain, its tragedies, and its somewhat fewer triumphs into
the reader’s living room — a more comfortable locale than a bivouac tent
above K2’s shoulder. So buy this book and read it, preferably in warm sur­
roundings. You will not be disappointed.
A
ndrew
J o h n K a u fm a n