Spirits of the Air

Diemberger, Kurt

Biographies & Memoirs

Mountaineers

"An almost perfect cone, incredibly high”, a mountain so breathtakingly beautiful as to leave Colonel Francis Younghusband, the first European to breach the Old Muztag Pass in 1887, quite literally speechless in front of sudden, almost unreal apparition. Over a hundred years later K2, the highest peak in the Karakoram Range, continues to bewitch generations of climbers. Titanic struggles have been consumed on its slopes by mountaineers striving to reach its summit, and the dreams of great expeditions and small teams alive have often been shattered. Successful routes of rare beauty have also been traced, some of considerable length. This book, through its 162 spectacular photographs and the enthralling first-hand accounts, offers readers the opportunity of reliving the magnificent exploits which took man to the top of the world’s second highest mountain: from the legendary expedition led by Luigi Amedeo of Savoy, the Duke of the Abruzzi, which reached an altitude of 6,000 meters, to the heroic, memorable conquest of the summit by Achille Compagnoni and Lino Lacedelli, members of the expedition led by Ardito Desio, and on up to the latest ascents completed in the Nineties.

K2: Challenging the Sky

Sports & Outdoors

Mantovani, Roberto

Mountaineering

Smithmark Pub.

An insightful and at times wrenching memoir of love lost and love found, set against a backdrop of the world's tallest peaks

The Endless Knot: K2, Mountain of Dreams and Destiny

MOUNTAINEERS BOOKS+

This book conveys the infectious mixture of enthusiasm, joy and awe which mountains inspire in the author. It follows the climbing career of a crystal-hunting Austrian teenager who went on to discover his native Alps, climbing in a succession of seasons the Brenva Face of Mont Blanc, the North Face of the Dent d'Herens, the Obergabelhorn direct, the North Face of the Matterhorn, the Konigswand, the Peuterey Ridge and the North Face of the Eiger. While further afield his small-scale Alpine-style expeditions took him to Broad Peak with Hermann Buhl and on a tragic denouement on Chogolisa to Tirich Mir in the Hindu Kush and the iceberg-choked fiords of Greenland.

Summits and Secrets

The author recounts his experiences traveling and climbing, discusses his climbing style, and shares his impressions of fellow climbers

Travel

Travel Writing

162 color photos. 10 3/4 x 14 1/4.

Asia

Takes a look at some of the almost seven hundred individuals who have tackled the world's highest mountain, from the first expedition in the 1920s to today

Everest: The History of the Himalayan Giant

One of the world's most influential climbers, Kurt Diemberger is the only living person to have the distinction of two first ascents on the world's 8000-meter peaks, both climbed without supplemental oxygen. In each of these classic works, his infectious mixture of joy, awe, and a voracious appetite for life shine through his words. The inclusion of two fascinating autobiographical works-Summits &amp; Secrets and Spirits of the Air-plus a powerful portrayal of K2 (The Endless Knot) make this omnibus a must for every climber's bookshelf.

The Kurt Diemberger Omnibus: Summits and Secrets : The Endless Knot : Spirits of the Air

'A monumental book ... I defy anyone to read it and remain unmoved.' Stephen Venables, Alpine Journal
Acclaimed as one of the most powerful accounts of mountain adventure and tragedy ever written, The Endless Knot is a harrowing account of the 1986 K2 disaster.
A rare first-hand account from a survivor at the very epicentre of the drama, The Endless Knot describes the disaster in frank detail. Kurt Diemberger's account of the final days of success, accident, storm and escape during which five climbers died, including his partner Julie Tullis and the great British mountaineer Al Rouse, is lacerating in its sense of tragedy, loss and dogged survival. Only Diemberger and Willi Bauer escaped the mountain. K2 had claimed the lives of thirteen climbers that summer.
Kurt Diemberger is one of only two climbers to have made first ascents of two 8000-metre peaks, Broad Peak and Dhaulagiri. A superb mountaineer, the K2 trauma left him physically and emotionally ravaged, but it also marked him out as an instinctive and tenacious survivor. After a long period of recovery Diemberger published The Endless Knot and resumed life as a mountaineer, filmmaker and international lecturer.

Specialty Travel

Vertebrate Publishing

'A book grows rather like a snow crystal. One doesn't write it from start to finish but, in greater or less degree, all at the same time ... that is why my book is not in chronological order; for everything is of the present, held in the moment when thought captures it.' Kurt Diemberger's Summits and Secrets is a mountaineering autobiography like no other. Writing anecdotally, Diemberger provides an abstract look into his life and climbing career that is both fascinating and awe-inspiring to navigate. Known for surviving the 1986 K2 disaster - an account described in harrowing detail in his award-winning book The Endless Knot - Diemberger provides a captivating insight into his earlier climbs in Summits and Secrets. From climbing his first peak in the Tyrol mountains of Austria, to the epoch-making first ascent of Broad Peak with Hermann Buhl in 1957, and then summiting Dhaulagiri in 1960, where he became one of only two people to have made first ascents of two mountains over 8,000 metres, Diemberger recounts his experiences with wit, honesty and an infectious enthusiasm: 'Every climber knows the thrill ... the unique inexplicable tension, which the regular shapes of the mountain world awake in him: huge pyramids, enormous rectangular slabs, piled-up triangles of rock, white circles, immense squares - the thrill of simplicity of shape and outline and the excitement of mastering them, to an unbelievable extent, by his own efforts, his own power ... ' Summits and Secrets is a must-read for those wanting an insight into the life and achievements of one of the toughest high-altitude climbers the world has ever known.

Summits and Secrets: The Kurt Diemberger autobiography

Science & Math

Nature & Ecology

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Diemberger, Kurt. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Diemberger, Kurt

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Diemberger, Kurt. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Spirits of the Air

K2: Challenging the Sky

The Endless Knot: K2, Mountain of Dreams and Destiny

Summits and Secrets

Spirits of the Air

K2: Challenging the Sky

Everest: The History of the Himalayan Giant

The Kurt Diemberger Omnibus: Summits and Secrets : The Endless Knot : Spirits of the Air

The Endless Knot: K2, Mountain of Dreams and Destiny

Summits and Secrets: The Kurt Diemberger autobiography