Everest the Cruel Way

In November 1980 an eight-man British team set out to climb Mount Everest in a style never before attempted. Their goal was to reach the summit via the infamous West Ridge, to climb it without the aid of supplementary oxygen and to do it in winter, at the time of year when the Himalayan climate is at its worst. On 30 January 1981 Joe Tasker and Ade Burgess stood on the crest of the West Ridge of the mountain, at a height of 24,000 feet. Below them were their companions, some exhausted, some crippled by illness, all virtually incapacitated. Further progress was impossible. The expedition retreated. Everest the Cruel Way is Joe Tasker's story of this attempt to climb the highest mountain on earth – a climb which proved too much for even a group of Britain's finest mountaineers. First published in 1981, and available now for the first time as an ebook, Tasker's epic account of the Everest West Ridge expedition vividly describes experiences which no climber had previously encountered or endured – and in doing so Tasker weaves a gripping narrative, not only of one man's quest to climb Everest but of the whole challenge of what motivates men and women to search for conquests hitherto unachieved. Joe Tasker was one of Britain's best mountaineers. He was a pioneer of lightweight, Alpine-style climbing in the Greater Ranges and had a special talent for writing. He died, along with his friend Peter Boardman, high on Everest in 1982 while attempting a new and unclimbed line. Both men were superb mountaineers and talented writers. The literary legacy of Tasker and Boardman lives on through the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature, established by family and friends in 1983 and presented annually to the author or co-authors of an original work which has made an outstanding contribution to mountain literature