ULTIMATE HIGH

A ham-handed account of what had all the ingredients to be a gripping adventure tale—Sweden to Kathmandu by bicycle, trek to Everest, climb, return by same route—from Kropp, the second person to ever reach the summit of K2 without supplemental oxygen, assisted by Swedish freelance journalist Lagercrantz. Inspired by the Himalayan feats of Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler, the light-traveling by-fair-means high-altitude climbers, Kropp decides to tackle Everest with no support whatsoever. He will get wherever he has to go under his own steam, carry his own food and low-rent gear, climb unassisted by Sherpas or oxygen: “the high tech gadgets, the abandoned equipment, and the left-over, left-behind junk are a rape of nature.” But rather than this being an environmentally sound, good-spirited approach, Kropp comes across as superior, with a scary sense of purity and punishment: “I prepared for the ascent by running in the mountains above the city until I felt the taste of blood in my mouth.” The trip to Nepal is told in juddering diary entries such as “December 29 / Kashan / I get a pencillin shot in a small hospital,” and when he gets to base camp, many of the climbers disgust him: “Everest has become a luxury peak, a place for buffoons who want something to brag about at their garden parties.” (This is May 1996, and a good number of them will soon be dead.) Kropp spends too much time commenting on the conduct of others (“excuse me for gossiping”)—who is having an affair with whom, who lied about summiting what peaks—and too little building a compelling narrative about his own adventure. He climbed without oxygen, and perhaps that robbed him of the experience. He sinks his own self-righteous ship by sneering at Messner, who climbed all the high peaks without oxygen. “The sad thing is, you can tell . . . the thin air has probably damaged his brain.” “So much writing has been done about climbing—and life—at the highest altitudes.” Too much. Add this book to the ballast. (photos, not seen)