The Summit

On 1 August, 2008, 18 climbers from across the world reached the summit of K2, the world's second-highest and most dangerous mountain - a peak that claims the life of one in every four climbers who attempt it. Over the course of 28 hours K2 had exacted a deadly toll: 11 lives were lost in a series of catastrophic accidents.

Over the course of three days, a Nepalese Sherpa called Pemba Gyalje, along with five other Sherpas, was at the center of a series of attempts to rescue climbers who had become trapped in the Death Zone, unable to escape its clutches and debilitated by oxygen deprivation, chronic fatigue, delirium and a terrifying hopelessness.

The tragedy became a controversy as the survivors walked from the catastrophe on the mountain into an international media storm, in which countless different stories emerged, some contradictory and many simply untrue.

Based on Pemba Gyalje's eyewitness account and drawing on a series of interviews with the survivors which were conducted for the award-winning documentary The Summit.

The Summit: How Triumph Turned to Tragedy on K2's Deadliest Days is the most comprehensive interpretation of one of modern-day mountaineering's most controversial disasters.