Victor Saunders – författare

‘Mountains have given structure to my adult life. I suppose they have also given me purpose, though I still can’t guess what that purpose might be. And although I have glimpsed the view from the mountaintop and I still have some memory of what direction life is meant to be going in, I usually lose sight of the wood for the trees. In other words, I, like most of us, have lived a life of structured chaos.’Structured Chaos is Victor Saunders’ award-winning follow-up to Elusive Summits (winner of the Boardman Tasker Prize in 1990), No Place to Fall and Himalaya: The Tribulations of Vic & Mick. He reflects on his early childhood in Malaya and his first experiences of climbing as a student, and describes his progression from scaling canal-side walls in Camden to expeditions in the Himalaya and Karakoram. Following climbs on K2 and Nanga Parbat, he leaves his career as an architect and moves to Chamonix to become a mountain guide. He later makes the first ascent of Chamshen in the Saser Kangri massif, and reunites with old friend Mick Fowler to climb the north face of Sersank.This is not just a tale of mountaineering triumphs, but also an account of rescues, tragedies and failures. Telling his story with humour and warmth, Saunders spans the decades from youthful awkwardness to concerns about age-related forgetfulness, ranging from ‘Where did I put my keys?’ to ‘Is this the right mountain?’Structured Chaos is a testament to the value of friendship and the things that really matter in life: being in the right place at the right time with the right people, and making the most of the view.

At a time when the greatest mountains in the greatest ranges had been climbed by numerous routes, collected like stamps and written about extensively, Victor Saunders and his friends relished the exploration of the slightly lower, slightly humbler, but often more aesthetically satisfying and no less testing summits in the 6,000- and 7,000-metre range. With thousands of unclimbed peaks in the Karakoram and Himalaya to choose from, these were ripe fruit for the committed mountaineers of the day.In his Boardman-Tasker-winning Elusive Summits, Victor Saunders describes four expeditions to the Karakoram, to Uzum Brakk, Bojohaghur Duanasir, Rimo and the stunning Spantik. Battling crevasses and violent weather, injured climbers and dropped rucksacks, Saunders and his friends make a string of exciting and difficult ascents.Saunders communicates the highs and lows of expedition life with relish, good humour, and a keen eye for the idiosyncratic among his companions. His first book, Elusive Summits, is a wonderful celebration of the sheer exhilaration that comes from the hardest level of alpine-style exploration in the Karakoram.

No Place to Fall is Victor Saunders’ follow up to his Boardman Tasker Prize winning debut book Elusive Summits. Covering three expeditions in Nepal, the Karakoram and the Kumaon, each shares the exhilaration of attempting new alpine-style routes on terrifyingly committing mountains.In 1989 Victor Saunders and Steve Sustad completed a difficult route on the West Face of Makalu II, only to be brought to a storm-bound halt above 7,000 metres while descending. Without food or bivouac gear, they endured a tortuous descent after a night in the open. Two years later the pair were with a small team in the Hunza valley exploring elusive access to a giant hidden pillar on the unvisited South-East Face of Ultar, one of the highest and most shapely of the world's unclimbed peaks.In 1992 Victor Saunders was part of a joint Indian-British team climbing various peaks in the Panch Chuli range. A happy and successful expedition narrowly avoided ending in tragedy when Stephen Venables broke both legs in a fall on the descent from Panch Chuli V and Chris Bonington survived another fall going to his aid. The dramatic evacuation of Venables, in which the author took a major part, forms an exciting climax to a story of cutting-edge, alpine-style climbing in the world's highest mountains.No Place to Fall offers enviable mountain exploration, enriched by sharing the lives of the mountain peoples along the way. Victor Saunders casts a perceptive, if bemused, eye over his fellow climbers and reflects on the calculation of risk that drives them back year after year to chance their lives in high places.