La elegancia de la eficiencia

Denis Urubko, one of the great references in world mountaineering, a freelance journalist, writer and speaker at conferences, has treasured an extraordinary sporting record in his thirty years of activity. He climbed the fourteen highest peaks on the planet in nine seasons and without additional oxygen. He some of them, moreover, for new routes or making first winter. Among his great achievements is the ascent of three eight-thousanders with barely eleven days apart, without oxygen, without rope partners or the assistance of Sherpas or porters, and in alpine style. But in his trajectory, above all, his solidarity facet and his intervention in dozens of rescues in the Death Zone stand out. In one of them, in May 2008, a call woke him up when he was sleeping in his hotel in Kathmandu. He did not hesitate, he went straight towards one of the most demanding walls of the Himalayas, the south face of Annapurna, to help his friend Iñaki Ochoa de Olza, trapped at 7400 m. Or years later he came to give up trying the winter ascent to K2 to rescue Élisabeth Revol on Nanga Parbat. This book describes these and many other episodes in which Denis Urubko has had the opportunity to help in the Himalayas and in the Karakoram. Extraordinary survival stories told in an intimate way but at the same time sprinkled with humor, irony and a critical spirit, in which he makes us reflect on the essence of mountaineering, or the legitimacy of knowing how to take risks to save the life of another human being.