Book Review

A Day To Die For: 1996: Everest's Worst Disaster - The Untold True StoryA Day To Die For: 1996: Everest's Worst Disaster - The Untold True Story by Graham Ratcliffe
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is both a book about mountaineering and investigative writing. In part it deals with Graham Ratcliffe's alpine climbing, but it generally does so to show how it related to the events of May 1996 when a number of climbers died on Mount Everest. He doesn't go into too much detail about his climbs which is good from my perspective. Graham was high on the mountain when the tragedy arose and was left wondering what would have happened if his team new had been called upon to help with the rescue.
Eventually, but after several years had elapsed, the event came to so haunt him that he spent many years of his life as he painstakingly tried to establish if weather predictions were known by the leaders of the mountaineering teams and, if so, why did they ignore these dire predictions. Serious questions are also raised about the avoidance of these matters by people who wrote books about the tragedy, especially Jon Krakauer (Into Thin Air) and David Breashears (High Exposure).

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