Ralph. The Last Blue Mountain … With a Foreword by Sir John Hunt.

by BARKER

£180 · Offered by Henry Sotheran Ltd

BARKER, Ralph. The Last Blue Mountain … With a Foreword by Sir John Hunt. London: Chatto Windus. 1959. 8vo. Original boards with illustrated dust-wrappers (price-clipped and with fraying to margins); pp. 211; sketch maps and plates after photographs; a good association copy. First edition, together with a letter by the mother of one of the participating mountaineers, who was later killed during another climbing tour. "The Last Blue Mountain is the heart-rending true story of the 1957 expedition to Mount Haramosh in the Karakoram range in Pakistan. With the summit beyond reach, four young climbers are about to return to camp. Their brief pause to enjoy the view and take photographs is interrupted by an avalanche which sweeps Bernard Jillott and John Emery hundreds of feet down the mountain into a snow basin. Miraculously, they both survive the fall. Rae Culbert and Tony Streather risk their own lives to rescue their friends, only to become stranded alongside them. The group's efforts to return to safety are increasingly desperate, hampered by injury, exhaustion and the loss of vital climbing gear. Against the odds, Jillott and Emery manage to climb out of the snow basin and head for camp, hoping to reach food, water and assistance in time to save themselves and their companions from an icy grave" (prospectus for a modern edition). Later, "John Emery was killed in an accident while descending the Weisshorn on August 4, 1963, at the age of twenty-nine. With all the major difficu

• Binding: Hardcover

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