{"product_id":"everest-the-hard-way","title":"Everest the Hard Way","description":"\u003cp\u003e'A beautiful, brutal story of human spirit against impossible odds.' Levison Wood Everest the highest peak in the world, the ultimate challenge to a mountaineer's skill and endurance. It had been climbed before, but never like this. Chris Bonington and his team had ambitions to climb it the hard way. Yet before Bonington and his team set out in August 1975, even their well-wishers gave them only a fifty fifty chance of success. The South-West Face of Everest had already defeated five expeditions, including one led by Bonington himself. Everest the Hard Way is an exhilarating story of courage, endurance and teamwork. Bonington's narrative celebrates the big moments and recreates the excitement and danger of the climb with vivid immediacy. He shares the logistical problems involved in keeping a large expedition moving, and the very real psychological ones of balancing and pairing lead climbers and giving each a chance to make the route on the face. He describes the constant avalanche threat which made the Western Cwm more dangerous than the ever-treacherous Ice Fall, and explains how lowering the sites of camps 4 and 5 solved a supply problem and kept the upward momentum for the attack on the notorious thousand-foot-tall Rock Band at 27,000 feet which had barred the way to the summit for all previous attempts. Drawing upon his experiences and the first-hand accounts and diaries of his fellow climbers, Bonington gives us the first-time jitters and unexpected emergencies, the pressures of balancing egos and skills, the meticulous planning, and the undiluted joy of mastering a seemingly impossible climb which would see Britons stand on the summit of the world for the first time. It is an immensely absorbing narrative, stunningly augmented with photographs and maps, with eleven appendices on everything from communications and equipment to food and medicine. How Bonington's team climbed on Everest in 1975 bears no relation to how Everest is climbed fifty years on, with endless resources and helicopter support. It was much riskier in 1975. Weather forecasts were threadbare and, although equipment was improving, it was much more basic than today, so the risk of frostbite was much greater for mountaineers in the 1970s. These climbers, the best of their generation, were leading hard new ground in the only style which gave them a meaningful chance of success. Chris Bonington's Everest the Hard Way is a beautiful, fascinating and tragic story of their legendary achievement. AUTHOR: Born in 1934, Chris Bonington mountaineer, writer, photographer and lecturer started climbing at the age of sixteen in 1951. It has been his passion ever since. He made the first British ascent of the North Face of the Eiger and led the expedition that made the first ascent of the South Face of Annapurna, the biggest and most difficult climb in the Himalaya at the time. He went on to lead the expedition that made the first ascent of the South-West Face of Everest in 1975 and then reached the summit of Everest himself in 1985 with a Norwegian expedition. He has written seventeen books, fronted numerous television programmes and has lectured to the public and corporate audiences all over the world. He received a knighthood in 1996 for services to mountaineering, was president of the Council for National Parks for eight years and the chancellor of Lancaster University for nine years, and is the non-executive chairman of Berghaus and a patron of Community Action Nepal.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eContents:\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIntroduction to the 2025 Edition\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCommunity Action Nepal by Trish Scott\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eForeword by Lord Hunt\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAuthor's Note\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e1 A second chance\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e2 It's the South-West Face\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e3 Picking the team\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e4 The approach march (2 August-16 August)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e5 From Khumde to Base Camp (17 August-25 August)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e6 The Ice Fall (22 August-27 August)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e7 The Western Cwm (28 August-1 September)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e8 Avalanches and debate (2 September-6 September)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e9 A new site for Camp 4 (7 September-10 September)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e10 Up the Great Central Gully (10 September-15 September)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e11 Camp 5 (15 September-19 September)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e12 Through the Rock Band (20 September)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e13 Poised for the top (21 September-22 September)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e14 The summit (23 September-25 September)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e15 Success and tragedy (25 September-26 September)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e16 Clearing the mountain (27 September-30 September)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAPPENDICES:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e1 Members of the expedition and a diary of events\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e2 Logistics by Chris Bonington\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e3 Organisation in Nepal by Mike Cheney\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e4 Transport by Ronnie Richards and Bob Stoodley\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e5 Equipment by Dave Clarke\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e6 Oxygen equipment by Hamish MacInnes\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e7 Food by Mike Thompson\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e8 Communications by Ronnie Richards\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e9 Photography by Doug Scott and Ian Stuart\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e10 Medicine by Dr Charles Clarke\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e11 Glossary of terms\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Vertebrate Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45767074349090,"sku":"9781839812644","price":75.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0052\/0785\/1042\/files\/Copy-of-Book-Template-2026-06-12T123122-374.jpg?v=1781224365","url":"https:\/\/petronella.co.nz\/products\/everest-the-hard-way","provider":"Petronella's Gallery and Bookstore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}