In 1996, Jon Krakauer went to Everest for Outside magazine to report on how commercial expeditions were changing the mountain. He got a far bigger story: on the day he reached the summit, a number of mountain guides (including New Zealander Rob Hall, pictured) and their wealthy clients were caught in a storm and eight died. Krakauer’s account is a modern example of how the power of nature can still expose hubris and ignorance. Although Russian guide Anatoli Boukreev countered with his own bestselling account, Krakauer’s Into Thin Air changed adventure publishing as editors scrambled to repeat its success Photograph: Public Domain
Uruguayan rugby compadres Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa not only survived when their plane crashed in the Andes in 1972, killing 29 of the 45 passengers on board, but then made an epic trek across the mountains to raise the alarm. The story of their fight for survival, resorting to cannibalism, became the 1974 bestseller Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivor by Piers Paul Read. Director Frank Marshall then made the film Alive, with Ethan Hawke starring as Parrado, who became a TV personality in Uruguay and wrote Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home Photograph: Sipa Press/Rex Features
The discovery of George Mallory’s body in 1999 on the north face of the mountain sparked a number of books and films exploring the mystery of whether or not he had managed to reach the summit in 1924 with Andrew Irvine. Jeffrey Archer wrote a screenplay that later became the bestseller Paths of Glory. A more reliable version, Peter and Leni Gillman’s highly praised biography The Wildest Dream, uses Mallory’s own phrase for his adventure. That same title was used by film-maker Anthony Geffen in a docudrama now on a limited cinema release. Natasha Richardson is the voice of Mallory’s wife, Ruth Photograph: John Noel Photo Collection/AP
After breaking his leg on the way down from the summit of Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes in 1991, Joe Simpson was being lowered the rest of the way by climbing pal Simon Yates, only to disappear into a crevasse. At risk of losing his own life, Yates cut the rope between them, sending Simpson to what looked like certain death. His harrowing three-day fight for life became the international bestseller Touching the Void, which won the NCR non-fiction award and became a Bafta-winning documentary by director Kevin Macdonald. Well he deserved to make a few quid after hallucinating a soundtrack with Boney M Photograph: PR
The north face of the Eiger, topped only by Everest in the mountain marketing stakes, became a deadly arena in the 1930s, as German and Austrian climbers vied to make the first ascent. German climber Toni Kurz (above) perished a few feet from rescuers after a desperate struggle for survival and the death of his three companions. His tale was told in the classic yarn The White Spider by Heinrich Harrer, who was on the first ascent of the north face in 1938, and forms the backbone of two films, The Beckoning Silence, based around another Joe Simpson book, and Philipp Stölzl’s 2008 release North Face Photograph: Public Domain
The same year that Hillary and Tenzing climbed Everest, a plucky team of amateur Americans attempted K2, the world’s second-highest mountain. As they neared the summit, they were trapped in a storm and one of them, Art Gilkey, fell ill. Even though Gilkey’s fate was sealed, the climbers couldn’t abandon him and attempted to bring the stricken climber down. The effort almost killed them all. How they escaped is the climax to one of mountaineering’s classics, K2, The Savage Mountain, by expedition leader Charles Houston and Robert Bates. Its ideals are Camelot in comparison to the modern self-interest in Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air Photograph: EPA
In 1974, American climber, feminist and research scientist Arlene Blum (above) arrived in the Pamirs, then part of the Soviet Union, as part of a huge international gathering of mountaineers. There, she met Elvira Shateava, leading an all-women Soviet team to the summit of Peak Lenin. Caught on the summit in bad weather, Shateava and her seven companions died one by one while trying to get down, each loss relayed over the radio. The story was told in Robert Craig’s Storm and Sorrow – unfortunately as made-for-TV schlock starring Lori Singer. But Blum’s life story Breaking Trail also tells the story – and how it inspired her biggest scientific discovery Photograph: Public Domain
In 1865, after years of attempts and fierce competition, Edward Whymper with his guides and companions climbed the Matterhorn above Zermatt. On the way down, inexperienced Douglas Hadow slipped and tore several others off the mountain, including Francis Douglas, son of the Marquess of Queensberry. The rope snapped, Whymper survived, but the loss shocked society, and Queen Victoria wondered if mountaineering shouldn’t be banned. Gustave Doré’s engraving of the accident captures the contemporary mood, but Edward Whymper’s own Scramble Amongst the Alps tells the story and the horror of the aftermath Photograph: Public Domain
One of the climbers attempting K2 in 1953 was British, an army officer called Tony Streather. Four years later, he found himself back in Pakistan leading a group of three students from Oxford University up a smaller but difficult peak called Haramosh. It proved too much for them, but on the verge of giving up, two of the climbers were caught in an avalanche. What followed is a story of astonishing determination and self-sacrifice with as many twists and turns as Touching the Void. Ralph Barker wrote up the story as The Last Blue Mountain, but you’ll need to hunt in the depths of Amazon to find this classic yarn Photograph: Public Domain
In 2008, 11 climbers died in the space of 24 hours close to the summit of K2. Climbers such as the acclaimed Reinhold Messner complained that commercial pressures were ruining K2, as they had Everest. But the truth was more complicated. Two highly readable books came out of the tragedy: the riveting No Way Down by New York Times journalist Graham Bowley and the more thoughtful One Mountain Thousand Summits by writer and climber Freddie Wilkinson, which revealed how a Nepalese porter called Pasang Bhote had made a heroic effort to rescue some of the stricken climbers, only to die himself in the attempt Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
