Londoin & New York, 1935-36, UK & US edition. 93 pp, 80 b/w photos, 3 maps. Green cloth hardcover with no DJ. We have two hardcover copies, both have no DJ and are slightly worn but solid and clean copies. 

Translated from the German by H.E.G. Tyndale. Account of the 1934 German expedition to Nanga Parbat that resulted in many deaths, including Willi Merkl and Wilo Welzenbach. 

Nanga Parbat is considered one on the most dangerous mountains to climb in the western Himalayas. It lies just south of the Indus River in the Astore District of Pakistan, just to the south of the western end of the Karakoram range.

In the 1930s, Nanga Parbat became the focus of German interest in the Himalaya. The German mountaineers were unable to attempt Mount Everest, as only the British had access to Tibet.

“Nanga Parbat Adventure” is a fascinating account of  adventure in the high Himalayas. For the most part, this German expedition did not benefit from oxygen or modern man-made materials, but rather used those classic materials for boots, clothing and climbing materials.

Perhaps nothing in mountaineering history can parallel the expedition which set out in 1934 to conquer the Nanga Parbat, the highest peak (26,642 feet) of the Western Himalayas. This book tells the complete story, with its tragic climax.

Merkl led this expedition, which was well prepared and financed with the full backing of the new Nazi government. Early in the expedition Alfred Drexel died, probably of high altitude pulmonary edema, then on the 7th July sixteen men were trapped by a ferocious storm at 7480m. During the desperate retreat that followed, three Germans, including Merkl, and six Sherpas died of exhaustion, exposure and altitude sickness, and several more suffered severe frostbite. The last survivor to reach safety, Ang Tsering, did so having spent seven days battling through the storm. It has been said that the disaster, 'for sheer protracted agony, has no parallel in climbing annals.'

Its a very gripping story, and the photography is exquisite. A superb account of 1930s Himalayan climbing.