the endless knot: k2, mountain of dreams and destiny

’A monumental book ... I defy anyone to read it and remain unmoved.’ Stephen Venables, Alpine Journal

Acclaimed as one of the most powerful accounts of mountain adventure and tragedy ever written, The Endless Knot is a harrowing account of the 1986 K2 disaster.

A rare first-hand account from a survivor at the very epicentre of the drama, The Endless Knot describes the disaster in frank detail. Kurt Diemberger’s account of the final days of success, accident, storm and escape during which five climbers died, including his partner Julie Tullis and the great British mountaineer Al Rouse, is lacerating in its sense of tragedy, loss and dogged survival. Only Diemberger and Willi Bauer escaped the mountain. K2 had claimed the lives of thirteen climbers that summer.

Kurt Diemberger is one of only two climbers to have made first ascents of two 8000-metre peaks, Broad Peak and Dhaulagiri. A superb mountaineer, the K2 trauma left him physically and emotionally ravaged, but it also marked him out as an instinctive and tenacious survivor. After a long period of recovery Diemberger published The Endless Knot and resumed life as a mountaineer, filmmaker and international lecturer.

Austrian mountaineer Kurt Diemberger is a member of an extremely select club - he is one of only two climbers to have made the first ascent of two of the world’s 8,000-metre peaks: Broad Peak in 1957 and Dhaulagiri in 1960. Diemberger is also one of the top high-altitude filmmakers in the world and an accomplished writer, and his books - including The Endless Knot, about the 1986 K2 disaster - have enjoyed popularity around the globe. He is now recognised as one of the finest chroniclers of the contemporary mountain scene, with his writing guaranteed to enlighten, move and entertain. In 2013, Diemberger was awarded the Piolet d’Ors lifetime achievement award.