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Vertebrate Publishing Ltd No Place to Fall by Victor Saunders
No Place to Fall is Victor Saunders follow up to his Boardman Tasker Prize winning debut book Elusive Summits. Covering three expeditions in Nepal the Karakoram and the Kumaon each shares the exhilaration of attempting new alpinestyle routes on terrifyingly committing mountains.In 1989 Victor Saunders and Steve Sustad completed a difficult route on the West Face of Makalu II only to be brought to a stormbound halt above 7000 metres while descending. Without food or bivouac gear they endured a tortuous descent after a night in the open. Two years later the pair were with a small team in the Hunza valley exploring elusive access to a giant hidden pillar on the unvisited SouthEast Face of Ultar one of the highest and most shapely of the worlds unclimbed peaks.In 1992 Victor Saunders was part of a joint IndianBritish team climbing various peaks in the Panch Chuli range. A happy and successful expedition narrowly avoided ending in tragedy when Stephen Venables broke both legs in a fall on the descent from Panch Chuli V and Chris Bonington survived another fall going to his aid. The dramatic evacuation of Venables in which the author took a major part forms an exciting climax to a story of cuttingedge alpinestyle climbing in the worlds highest mountains.No Place to Fall offers enviable mountain exploration enriched by sharing the lives of the mountain peoples along the way. Victor Saunders casts a perceptive if bemused eye over his fellow climbers and reflects on the calculation of risk that drives them back year after year to chance their lives in high places.show more