Savage Summit

K2 is the second-highest mountain on earth and by many measures the deadliest, and for years it claimed the women who reached its summit. Jennifer Jordan tells the life stories of the first five women to stand on top of K2, Wanda Rutkiewicz, Liliane Barrard, Chantal Mauduit, Julie Tullis, and Alison Hargreaves, three of whom died descending the mountain and two of whom later died on other peaks. Jordan spent time at K2 base camp and drew on interviews, letters, and expedition records to render each climber as a full person driven by ambition and love of the mountains. The book is a group portrait, an elegy, and a reckoning with what high-altitude climbing costs the people who commit to it.