Description
Book Synopsis‘When an accident occurs, something may emerge of lasting value, for the human spirit may rise to its greatest heights. This happened on Haramosh.’
The Last Blue Mountain is the heart-rending true story of the 1957 expedition to Mount Haramosh in the Karakoram range in Pakistan. With the summit beyond reach, four young climbers are about to return to camp. Their brief pause to enjoy the view and take photographs is interrupted by an avalanche which sweeps Bernard Jillott and John Emery hundreds of feet down the mountain into a snow basin. Miraculously, they both survive the fall. Rae Culbert and Tony Streather risk their own lives to rescue their friends, only to become stranded alongside them.
The group’s efforts to return to safety are increasingly desperate, hampered by injury, exhaustion and the loss of vital climbing gear. Against the odds, Jillott and Emery manage to climb out of the snow basin and head for camp, hoping to reach food, water and assistance in time to save themselves and their companions from an icy grave. But another cruel twist of fate awaits them.
An acclaimed mountaineering classic in the same genre as Joe Simpson's Touching the Void, Ralph Barker’s The Last Blue Mountain is an epic tale of friendship and fortitude in the face of tragedy.
Table of Contents
Introduction to the 2020 Edition by Ed Douglas
Foreword to the 1959 Edition by Lord Hunt
Author’s Note
1 HARAMOSH
2 IN THE KUTWAL VALLEY
3 ABOVE THE HARAMOSH LA
4 TROUBLE WITH THE HUNZAS
5 THE LOST FOOD DUMP
6 THE CLIMB TO CAMP IV
7 THE SNOW CAVE
8 EMERY AND THE CREVASSE
9 THE AVALANCHE
10 THE SNOW BASIN
11 THE TREACHEROUS TRAVERSE
12 THE TRACKS DIVIDE
13 FIGHTING FOR LIFE
14 DISINTEGRATION
15 ALONE AT CAMP III
16 LAST NIGHTS ON THE MOUNTAIN
Afterword
Appendix: ‘The Runcible Cat’ by John Emery
Photographs and Illustrations
Index
