This great mountain range was the setting for the Royal Geographical Society's 150th anniversary expedition. The Karakoram Project 1980 combined the traditional motives of exploration - the lure of a remote, difficult and unknown terrain - with scientific ambitions and set out to use Karakoram as a testing ground for theories about continental drift, mountain building and decay, and to study the effect of ever present hazards on the local population.
This book graphically illustrates the frustrations and diplomacy involved in getting an expedition of this size and complexity off the ground and gives a gripping account of the three months the expedition spent in the field. The IKP did not set out in a blaze of publicity to scale one of the world's great mountains but expedition members had to cope with hazards as great as those faced by any mountaineer, tragically illustrated when Jim Bishop fell to his death down a precipice.
This book is not only a record of scientific achievement under very difficult conditions but also a tribute to human eneavour and courage. The book is amply illustarted with photographs and drawings. Large format hardcover, DJ, Near Fine.
