Books: Ordeal in the Sky

THE BUTCHER: THE ASCENT OF YERUPAJA (213 pp.)—John Sack—Rinehart

"First climb Kanchenjunga," runs a well-known mountaineering challenge, "then Yerupaja." Since no one has ever scaled Himalayan Kanchenjunga (though eight men have died trying), anybody in his right mind might conclude that Peruvian Yerupaja ("The Butcher") is strictly for the birds.

Six young U.S. hotspurs therefore decided to climb it. In 1950, for their summer vacation, they tossed away reason with their razors and hauled off to Peru as casually as if one of the highest unsealed peaks in the hemisphere were no more than a library ladder. What happened to them is described...

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