Master of thin air : life and death on the world's highest peaks / Andrew Lock ; with a new foreword by Sandy Allan ; introduction by Peter Hillary.

Includes a glossary of mountaineering terms and index.

"Master of Thin Air opens with a fall leading to a three-thousand-foot drop that very nearly killed the author. The qualities that saved him then on K2--in addition to his mountaineering know-how and sheer good luck--drove his sixteen-year journey to summit all of the world's eight-thousanders, the fourteen peaks that exceed 8,000 meters (26,000-plus feet) and that take climbers into the death zone. Incredibly, he accomplished that feat without the aid of bottled oxygen for every mountain but one. By preference, he climbed solo or in small teams, without Sherpas. During twenty-three expeditions, he spent a total of three years clinging to the sides of dangerous mountains. He lost more than twenty climbing friends and, in April 2014, witnessed Everest's deadliest avalanche. His book is a[n] ... account of what it takes to challenge the Earth's highest peaks and survive"--Page 4 of cover.