I found this fair-condition hardcover among the book-sale books at the local library, and nabbed it for another release copy.

The book focuses on the 2006 climbing season on Everest. This wasn't the year with the highest casualties, but is notorious for the incident in which a climber lay dying just off of the main route, where dozens of climbers walked past him on the way to the summit. Another climber was abandoned on the route and declared dead, but turned up alive after a remarkably long time on the mountain with no shelter, raising the question of whether the first climber might have survived if people had stopped to help.

There's no easy answer to the questions, of course; many people die on the high places despite all the efforts of their companions to help them, and others survive seemingly impossible situations without any help at all. And since everyone who goes up the mountain is supposed to be aware that past a certain point they're on their own, is it fair to expect others to stop - especially when spending extra time and effort that way might endanger them too?

That's what the book is about, though it also goes into the causes of the crowds on the mountain, and of the growing mindset of people being "owed" a summit. And there are accounts of many deaths from other seasons, demonstrating the variety of ways one can die on Everest; I think the author's as puzzled about why people put themselves through that as about why others can ignore people in peril...

I left this book on the book-swap shelf in the Tyngsboro post office lobby at around 4:30 or so; hope the finder enjoys it!

*** Released for the 2014 Spook-tacular Halloween Challenge, for "dark". ***

*** Released for the 2014 TICK TOCK release challenge, for "dark". ***