Book Review: Surviving K2 by Wilco van Rooijen

Unfortunately, you can't always sit with your head in the mountains. There will be times when you are at home and longing to go back to the mountains and hiking. For these moments, mountain books are the ideal solution. Imagine from home in the Alps, Himalayas, or the Andes. This time: Survival on the K2 by Wilco van Rooijen

Surviving K2 by Wilco van Rooijen

K2. Just seeing that name makes many people shudder. The second highest mountain in the world (8611m), with its barren and unmistakable peak in a remote place somewhere between Pakistan and China, rises above hundreds of other mountains. A mountain that returns time and again in extreme stories about cold, loneliness and adventure. The K2 is above all a mountain that, because of its absolute inaccessibility, only returns in vague distant dreams.

With his book 'Surviving on the K2' Wilco van Rooijen brings his own dream very close to the reader. As a young Dutch mountaineer he and his climbing buddy Cas van de Gevel get a great opportunity: participating in an international expedition to K2 in 1995!

The K2 is not only big on its own. The mountain also gets a very big place in the life of Wilco. After two expeditions to the K2 (1995 & 2006) in which he did not reach the top, in 2008 he put together his own team for a new sponsored expedition to the top: 'the Norit K2 Expedition'. His first two expeditions are explained in a detailed and exciting way in the book, but in 'Surviving on K2' it's really about his third attempt to reach the top.

Just about half way through the book this gigantic new adventure begins. It is the spring of 2008 and expectations are high. Wilco takes you along in all the challenges you get to choose as team leader when climbing such a giant. Motivating team members, keeping sherpas involved, reading forecasts again, making and changing plans, building tent camps under miserable conditions, finding frozen snowy ropes and above all having patience and respect for the mountain.

While reading, it also becomes clear to me how it is possible that 1 out of 4 climbers who reach the top of K2 don't return alive. You're actually the life-threatening overhanging seracs not yet passed or you're already standing on a vertical wall where stones as big as a refrigerator of one kilometer above you whiz down (quote). Not to mention the gigantic pieces of ice that can break down and the lack of sufficient oxygen above 8000 meters.

This famous and gigantic adventure from 2008 is a must-read for anyone who has heard of K2 and is impressed by the existence of this massive appearance. I read it in one go.

Want to read this book?

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