London, 1989, 1st edition. 236 pp, many color and b/w photos. Hardcover with dust jacket. Fine.
Messner has said that this is 'The best ascent of Everest in terms and style of pure adventure'. Webster and Anderson made the South Summit, while Venables made the top.
This was the smallest team to climb Everest by a new route, the Kangshung Face. Venables reached the summit solo. The team included Robert Anderson and Ed Webster. Stephen Venables and three companions set out to climb Everest's most challenging and remote wall, the massive Kangshung Face in 1988.
Some experts gave them little chance of success - or even survival. The team was the smallest group ever to attempt such a difficult climb on the world's highest mountain. Following many weeks of struggle and a 16-hour push from high camp, Venables reached the summit alone. After a blizzard delayed his descent, he was forced to spend a night in the open at 28,000 feet - and the team's troubles were just beginning.
Every day, the path up the South Col route to the summit of Everest becomes a little more worn by the tread of dozens of package-tour climbers, but few dare to try the East, or Kangshung, Face, a sheer, avalanche-swept wall of snow and ice only first conquered in 1983. Five years later, Stephen Venables intensified the challenge by leading three unknown American climbers up the East Face - this time without oxygen. The question to most climbing experts wasn't whether they would summit, but whether they would live. They nearly didn't Everest: Alone at the Summit is Venables' rousing account of one of the greatest feats of twentieth century mountaineering, a triumph over doubt, the elements and the limits of human endurance that has never been repeated. 'Climbers or not, all will be interested in this mountaineering thriller of a tiny band pulling off an incredible victory-an account so stirring it will be put down only to obtain a moment's breather.' - American Alpine Journal
