Buried in the Sky tells the true story of the disastrous day in 2008 when eleven climbers died on K2. It differs from Into Thin Air and other similar books in that it focuses largely on the support climbers, the Nepalese and Pakastani climbers.
The climbing descriptions are actually fairly lackluster, at least for frequent readers of mountaineering literature. Viewing the story through the local climbers provides a distinctive perspective though. I learned about the cultural backgrounds of the various ethnicities that work as "sherpas," and how Western climbers tend to ignore the differences at their peril. One contributing factor in the tragedy occurred when the team of support climbers setting fixed lines through The Bottleneck was left without a common language.
The climbing descriptions are actually fairly lackluster, at least for frequent readers of mountaineering literature. Viewing the story through the local climbers provides a distinctive perspective though. I learned about the cultural backgrounds of the various ethnicities that work as "sherpas," and how Western climbers tend to ignore the differences at their peril. One contributing factor in the tragedy occurred when the team of support climbers setting fixed lines through The Bottleneck was left without a common language.
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