NANGA PARBAT

Nanga Parbat looms 26,620 feet on the Himalayan horizon and is known as the German Mountain of the East. Dr. Karl Herrligkoffer shows why as he traces the terrible history of conquest and counter-conquest of a defiant mountain. Nanga Parbat claimed as first victim Mummery of the 1895 English expedition; by means of avalanche, storm, height, cold it brought its victims to a total of thirty-one before it was conquered. The stories of the expeditions that went before 1953 from Mummery to Merkl and on and on, each ending with catastrophe and defeat, generate chilling climaxes in themselves, almost overshadowing in their cumulative effect the story of success. Dr. Herrligkoffer, half brother of Merkl, determined to reach the peak his brother had died trying to attain. His own difficulties, with porters and weather, were surmounted, and in a unique solo climb Herman Buhl reached the summit. Notes on the Hunzas, on equipment, on the dissension that marred the joy of achievement but made that achievement no less great, complete a document to stand high in the mountaineer field.