Winter 8000 – Climbing the World’s highest mountains in the coldest season

Of all the games mountaineers play on the world’s high mountains, the hardest
– and cruellest – is climbing the fourteen peaks over 8,000 metres in the
bitter cold of winter. Ferocious winds that can pick you up and throw you
down, freezing temperatures that burn your lungs and numb your bones, weeks of
psychological torment in dark isolation: these are adventures for those with
an iron will and a ruthless determination.

For the first time, award-winning author Bernadette McDonald tells the story
of how Poland’s ice warriors made winter their own, perfecting what they
dubbed ‹the art of suffering› as they fought theirway to the summit of Everest
in the winter of 1980 – the first 8,000-metre peak they climbed this way but
by no means their last.

She reveals what it was that inspired the Poles to take up this brutal game,
how increasing numbers of climbers from other nations were inspired to enter
the arena, and how competition intensified as each remaining peak finally
submitted to leave just one awaiting a winter ascent, the meanest of them all:
K2.

Winter 8000 is the story of true adventure at its most demanding.

No of Pages: 256
Page Size: 156 x 234 mm
Edition: 1st, 2020
Binding: Hardback
Illustrations: B&W; with 16pp colour plates