Another book by someone involved in the 1996 Everest disaster, this time British mountaineer Graham Ratcliffe who had joined Henry Todd’s Himalayan Guides expedition in his attempt to be the first Brit to summit from both the North (Tibet) and South (Nepal) side of the mountain.
It’s another very personal story, but told more than a decade after the events, as Graham Radcliffe comes to terms with the events of 10-11 May 1996 when the storm hit the South Col and resulted in the death of eight people.
There are many deaths in Graham’s narrative, of friends and fellow mountaineers swept from mountains by avalanches or jet stream strength high winds, succumbing to exposure or to acute mountain sickness brought on by the altitude. But those of May 1996 he lays at the door of poor decisions made by the two commercial teams who suffered the losses, who it transpires were receiving daily state of the art weather forecasts which made the timing and probable path of the (not so) “rogue storm” abundantly clear.
Author’s webpage: A Day to Die For: 1996: Everest’s Worst Disaster – One Survivor’s Personal Journey to Uncover the Truth – Graham Ratcliffe
Review of A Day to Die For on the Everest Book Report blog (a treasure trove of Everest-related book titles and reviews!)