Winter 8000

'He appeared, without a word, in the tent's entrance, covered in ice. He looked like anyone would after spending over twenty-four hours in a hurricane at over 8,000 metres. In winter. In the Karakoram. He was so exhausted he couldn't speak.'

Of all the games mountaineers play on the world's high mountains, the hardest - and cruellest - is climbing the fourteen peaks over 8,000 metres in the bitter cold of winter. Ferocious winds that can pick you up and throw you down, freezing temperatures that burn your lungs and numb your bones, weeks of psychological torment in dark isolation: these are adventures for those with an iron will and a ruthless determination.

For the first time, award-winning author Bernadette McDonald tells the story of how Poland's ice warriors made winter their own, perfecting what they dubbed 'the art of suffering' as they fought their way to the summit of Everest in the winter of 1980 - the first 8,000-metre peak they climbed this way but by no means their last. She reveals what it was that inspired the Poles to take up this brutal game, how increasing numbers of climbers from other nations were inspired to enter the arena, and how competition intensified as each remaining peak finally submitted to leave just one awaiting a winter ascent, the meanest of them all: K2.

Winter 8000 is the story of true adventure at its most demanding.

Auteur

Bernadette McDonald is the author of ten mountaineering books, including the multi-award-winning Freedom Climbers (2011). Among its international awards, Freedom Climbers won the Grand Prize at the Banff Mountain Book Festival, the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature and the American Alpine Club's H. Adams Carter Literary Award. Her other mountaineering titles include Tomaz Humar (2008), Brotherhood of the Rope: The Biography of Charles Houston (2007), Keeper of the Mountains: The Elizabeth Hawley Story (2012) and Alpine Warriors (2015). McDonald's books have been translated into eight languages, and her international awards include Italy's ITAS Prize (2010) and India's Kekoo Naoroji Award for Mountain Literature (2008, 2009 and 2011). She has also received the Alberta Order of Excellence (2010), the Summit of Excellence Award (2007) and the King Albert Award for international leadership in mountain culture and environment (2006). She was the founding vice-president of Mountain Culture at The Banff Centre and served as director of the Banff Mountain Festivals from 1988 to 2006.