A Day to Die For

A must read for anyone interested in the previously untold story of the primary reason for the Everest disaster of 1996. Ratcliffe vividly describes the scene in Nepal and Tibet and carefully explains the central error in judgement by expedition leaders which primarily caused the sad deaths and injuries on Everest in 1996. This is a well considered, compelling and captivating narrative based on accurate data previously and most unfortunately avoided by other chroniclers of the Everest debacle. Unstated but made clear are the motives of those who really knew but omitted to tell the full story.

I am singularly unimpressed with this trash and I regret ever having bought it. The author retells the story based upon what he experienced while on Everest, which was fine. He then spends most of the book describing how wonderful and pivotal he is in everything else. After you finally muddle through the endless self praise you finally get to it, the author presents himself as a victim of the events that unfurled in 1996. He behaves like Mountain Madness and Adventure Consultants plotted his demise and in their plotting, caused their own demise instead. This author goes into vivid detail about how torturous it was for him to be on Everest and having to live with those memories. I guess his experience from the relative safety of camp IV with plenty of oxygen was just as horrific as the climbers who couldn't get to safety and either suffered severe frostbite or died.

This is trash. It's easy to point fingers at the dead and to blame the tragedy on the dead. But the author, as close as he was to some of the climbers that died was NOT in fact a victim and this is nothing more than an attempt to benefit monetarily, worship himself as both a survivor and a victim of an expedition he wasn't even a part of, and cause a great deal of pain to those who are still here and were PERSONALLY touched or involved with the expeditions that were involved.

To the author I would say this, good going jerk. Please, return to Nepal and continue to marvel at how well you are remembered by every person and please, by all means, return to Everest yet again so you can be haunted by your memories to the point of debilitation. And please, tell us how awful it was and how you were personally affected by anything of importance that has happened on the planet in the last decade or so, because you've already proven, this is all about you.

The book had information that others do not have.

However, I was completely turned off by the authors accusing tone. I'm sure that there are things that were not made public but I believe it was to protect the reputations and legacies of Scott and Rob. Not a conspiracy. And he keeps saying that if his team were asked to help with the rescue, they were the most prepared, ready, able, etc. Enough already.

Since I'm sure he has burned every bridge he ever had with anyone connected with Everest, it's a good thing he's retired from climbing.

He sounds like a whiny kid through the whole book.

Sour grapes!