About The Book

No Way Down is the the gripping, terrifying story of a brutal struggle for survival on the upper slopes of the Himalayan K2, the world's most hostile terrain, by Graham Bowley. K2, August 1st, 2008. Thirty climbers are attempting the summit of the most savage mountain on Earth. They make it. But before they start their descent an ice shelf collapses, sweeping away their ropes. It is dark. Their lines are gone. They are low on oxygen. And it is getting very, very cold. How many will make it down alive? 'A gripping hour-by-hour dissection of events in the Western Himalayas over three deadly days. A fitting shelfmate to the modern classic Into Thin Air. A cracking read' Sunday Times 'Stories of heroism, sadness and extraordinary endurance against all the odds are woven into a thrilling drama' Daily Mail 'Unputdownable. A portrait of extreme courage, folly and loss, leavened by a small dose of survival . . . as complete a version of the calamitous story as will probably ever emerge' Financial Times 'The best mountain-disaster memoir since Into Thin Air' Mail on Sunday Graham Bowley was born in England in 1968. He is a reporter for the New York Times. He lives in Manhattan with his wife and their two daughters and son.

Editorial Reviews

Riveting and powerful; an extraordinary story of an extraordinary tragedy. Reading No Way Down is the closest you can come to being on the summit of K2 on that fateful day -- Sir Ranulph Fiennes

A gripping hour-by-hour dissection of events in the Western Himalaya over three deadly days... a fitting shelfmate to the modern classic Into Thin Air -- Brian Schofield * Sunday Times *

Stories of heroism, sadness and extraordinary endurance against all the odds are woven into a thrilling drama -- Christopher Hudson * Daily Mail *

Unputdownable... a portrait of extreme courage, folly and loss, leavened by a small dose of survival' * Financial Times *

Artfully and assiduously pieces together an account of a fractious day in brutal real time. Fatality by fatality... devastating * New York Times *

A tour de force of a book...a triumph of storytelling * Associated Press *

Probably the best mountain-disaster memoir since Into Thin Air * Mail on Sunday *

About Author

Graham Bowley

Graham Bowley is an investigative reporter on the Culture desk of The New York Times covering the darker but also the lighter side of the arts, culture and cultural organizations, from the allegations against Bill Cosby to the the birth of the new National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. He reported for The Times from Afghanistan in 2012, and has also lived and worked as a journalist in Britain and Germany. He is the author of the book “No Way Down: Life and Death on K2.