{"product_id":"9781839810534","title":"The Shining Mountain: The first ascent of the West Wall of Changabang","description":"\u003ci\u003e‘It’s a preposterous plan. Still, if you do get up it, it’ll be the hardest thing that’s been done in the Himalayas.’\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo spoke \u003cb\u003eChris Bonington\u003c\/b\u003e when \u003cb\u003ePeter Boardman\u003c\/b\u003e and \u003cb\u003eJoe Tasker\u003c\/b\u003e presented him with their plan to tackle the unclimbed West Wall of \u003cb\u003eChangabang\u003c\/b\u003e – the Shining Mountain – in 1976. Bonington’s was one of the more positive responses; most felt the climb impossibly hard, especially for a two-man, lightweight expedition. This was, after all, perhaps the most fearsome and technically challenging granite wall in the Garhwal Himalaya and an ascent – particularly one in a lightweight style – would be more significant than anything done on Everest at the time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe idea had been Joe Tasker’s. He had photographed the sheer, shining, white granite sweep of Changabang’s West Wall on a previous expedition and asked Pete to return with him the following year. Tasker contributes a second voice throughout Boardman’s story, which starts with acclimatisation, sleeping in a Salford frozen food store, and progresses through three nights of hell, marooned in hammocks during a storm, to moments of exultation at the variety and intricacy of the superb, if punishingly difficult, climbing. It is a story of how climbing a mountain can become an all-consuming goal, of the tensions inevitable in forty days of isolation on a two-man expedition; as well as a record of the moment of joy upon reaching the summit ridge against all odds.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFirst published in 1978, \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Shining Mountain\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e is Peter Boardman’s first book. It is a very personal and honest story that is also amusing, lucidly descriptive, very exciting, and never anything but immensely readable. It was awarded the \u003cb\u003eJohn Llewellyn Rhys Prize\u003c\/b\u003e for literature in 1979, winning wide acclaim. His second book, \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSacred Summits\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e, was published shortly after his death in 1982.","brand":"Vertebrate Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42552688967741,"sku":"9781839810534","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0603\/0838\/9949\/files\/9781839810534_p0.jpg?v=1771574298","url":"https:\/\/www.tatteredcover.com\/products\/9781839810534","provider":"Tattered Cover","version":"1.0","type":"link"}