20% off everything
Coming Soon

Winter 8000

Climbing the world's highest mountains in the coldest season

Hardback: ISBN: 9781912560387
272 pages
Author: Bernadette McDonald
Publication date: 3 Sep 2020

Hardback available to pre-order now

Special edition signed hardback sold out*

‘He appeared, without a word, in the tent’s entrance, covered in ice. He looked like anyone would after spending over twenty-four hours in a hurricane at over 8,000 metres. In winter. In the Karakoram. He was so exhausted he couldn’t speak.’

Of all the games mountaineers play on the world’s high mountains, the hardest – and cruellest – is climbing the fourteen peaks over 8,000 metres in the bitter cold of winter. Ferocious winds that can pick you up and throw you down, freezing temperatures that burn your lungs and numb your bones, weeks of psychological torment in dark isolation: these are adventures for those with an iron will and a ruthless determination.

For the first time, award-winning author Bernadette McDonald tells the story of how Poland’s ice warriors made winter their own, perfecting what they dubbed ‘the art of suffering’ as they fought their way to the summit of Everest in the winter of 1980 – the first 8,000-metre peak they climbed this way but by no means their last. She reveals what it was that inspired the Poles to take up this brutal game, how increasing numbers of climbers from other nations were inspired to enter the arena, and how competition intensified as each remaining peak finally submitted to leave just one awaiting a winter ascent, the meanest of them all: K2.

Winter 8000 is the story of true adventure at its most demanding.

(Ebook and audiobook available September 2020.)

*SPECIAL EDITION HARDBACK SOLD OUT. Trade edition hardback available to pre-order now. We will publish 250 special edition hardback copies of Winter 8000 in September 2020. These will feature a numbered tip-in page, signed by author Bernadette McDonald and bound in to the front of the book. The special edition copies will be bound in orange Wicotex real cloth with silver foil blocking on the spine, with head and tail bands, and a special edition jacket. The special edition copies of Winter 8000 will be available exclusively from our website on a first-come, first-served basis for £24 per copy (with free UK P&P). The hardback trade edition of Winter 8000 will also be published in September 2020 and will be available to purchase at the same time for £24 (with free UK P&P). Trade edition hardback copies of Winter 8000 will be unsigned.

The North American edition of Winter 8000 is published by Mountaineers Books. Customers in the USA and Canada should visit the Mountaineers website to pre-order the book. We cannot accept orders from the USA and Canada.