Everest the Cruel Way
The audacious winter attempt of the West Ridge

This one didn't grab me. It only occasionally came to life with the human aspects of the climb and was too focused on the technical for me. Add to the bizarre grammar and punctuation in the version I read it didn't read coherently. Savage arena is much better and I'd recommend you start with that on......more

Nuts – that’s what this book is. As if climbing Everest isn’t hard enough, Joe Tasker tried to do it with a band of other incredibly brave, stupendously hardy mountaineers, in the middle of winter, without oxygen or sherpas, via the notoriously difficult West Ridge. To find out what it takes to spen......more

Everest the Cruel Way gives Joe Tasker's account of the British Team's attempt on the west ridge of Everest in winter 1980/1981. At the time, there had only been one successful winter expedition to an 8000m peak, the team were on an audacious project which pushed the limits of what was known to be h......more

A classic of mountaineering, although not to the same extent as Savage Arena, Tasker's other (later) book. This is the story of an ill-fated expedition to climb Everest by an unusual route, in winter. The challenge was too great and the team had to turn back, plagued by illness and atrocious weather.......more

I read every Peter Boardman, Joe Tasker book I could find until I found no more. My frame of reference for future armchair epics was difficult to match. These guys slept on hammocks instead of portaledges, trained for cold by sleeping in walk in freezers. Encouraged sleep on big walls will a sleepin......more