London, Victor Gollancz, 1974-76 2nd - 3rd printing. 189 pp, b/w photos. Navy cloth hardcover with dust jacket. Fine.
Extreme climbs from 1961-71. Bonatti's second autobiographical work covers the Walker Spur, Eiger, Siberia, the Matterhorn, and more.
Wikipedia:
Walter Bonatti (June 22, 1930 - Sept 13, 2011) was an Italian born climber who set new standards in post-war Alpine climbing.
Famed for his climbing panache, he pioneered little known and technically difficult climbs in the Alps, Himalaya and Patagonia. Among his notable climbs are a solo climb of a new route on the south-west pillar of the Aiguille du Dru in August 1955 and the first solo winter ascent of the Matterhorn north face in 1965.
At the age of 21, Bonatti in 1951 made the first ascent of The Grand Capucin, an extraordinary red granite pinnacle in the Mont Blanc Massif, from July 20 to the 23. This was the climb that brought him to public notice. At the tender age of eighteen, Bonatti had already made the fourth ascent of the formidable North Face of the Grand Jorasses with very poor equipment over a period of two days. Bonatti was awarded the French Legion d'Honneur for saving the lives of two fellow-climbers in a disaster in the Alps.
Walter Bonatti was at the center of a climbing controversy regarding the first successful ascent of K2 by Lino Lacedelli and Achille Compagnoni in 1954, where as a 24-year old he helped ferry oxygen cylinders to the summiteers at Camp 9. Bonatti was accused of using some of the vital oxygen during his enforced bivouac at 26,600 ft when in fact, it was physically impossible for him to do so - he had no mask or regulator.
He descended the next day leaving the oxygen intact for Lacedelli and Compagnoni to use in their successful summit climb. They used oxygen to the very summit of K2, oxygen that Bonatti had risked his life to get to them. In the early 1990s, two summit photos proved his story that the climbers were using oxygen.
