Buried in the Sky

In August 2008, a crowd of climbers pushed for the summit of K2, the world's second-highest and most lethal peak. Late in the day a serac collapsed and swept away the ropes fixed through the Bottleneck, stranding climbers above the most dangerous section of the mountain. Eleven died. Peter Zuckerman and Amanda Padoan tell the story through the Sherpa and high-altitude porters usually left out of Western accounts, centering Chhiring Dorje and Pasang Lama, whose bond and mountaineering skill shaped the survival of others. The authors spent three years reporting the book, traveling to the men's home villages, and reconstructing the disaster from the ground up.