Johannesburg launch of 'One Man's Climb' by Adrian Hayes on July 17

British adventurer Hayes will discuss his ascent of the world's most perilous mountain, K2, with local mountaineer Deshun Deysel at Love Books on Wednesday, July 17

10 July 2019 - 12:11 By NICOLA PAINE
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'One Man's Climb' is a deeply moving story of the beauty and brutality of life and death on the world's most unpredictable and most perilous mountain, K2.
'One Man's Climb' is a deeply moving story of the beauty and brutality of life and death on the world's most unpredictable and most perilous mountain, K2.
Image: Blue Weaver

One Man’s Climb chronicles Adrian Hayes’s failed attempt to summit K2 in 2013 and subsequent success the following year. The two-and-a-half-year commitment he gave to the mountain was life-changing and came at a great personal cost.

Struggling with guilt and regret as a father, Hayes talks candidly about his parallel journey of a traumatic five-year battle through the British family courts to have contact with his children – an emotional challenge he regards as being as hard as climbing K2.

Hayes’s gripping narrative shifts seamlessly from his personal domestic struggle to the profound events on K2.

The story of high-altitude mountaineering, being connected to nature and living in the present is compelling, as are his friendships with fellow mountaineers and Sherpas; the physical and mental hardships, triumphs and tragedies. Significantly, Hayes was one of the last people to speak to acclaimed New Zealand mountaineering guide Marty Schmidt and his son Denali.

Absorbing and self-reflective, his journey is as much a story of climbing a mountain as it is a compass for conquering the mountain within all of us. 

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