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Documentary film-maker Mick Conefrey tells the story of ill-fated and disastrous early attempts to climb the world’s second highest mountain K2, known as the Savage Mountain due to the extreme difficulty of ascent, and shows clips from his award-winning film The Ghosts of K2.

K2 is 800 feet lower than Everest but a far harder climb. Conefrey looks at the early attempts made by the drug-addicted occultist Aleister Crowley and the wealthy Italian Duke of Abruzzi, the expeditions of 1939 and 1952 involving the brilliant but tortured American expedition leader Charlie Houston and the first successful and hugely controversial attempt made in 1954 by an Italian expedition. Conefrey has based his book on exclusive interviews with surviving team members and their families and on access to diaries and letters held in archives around the world.

Conefrey is author of the award-winning Adventurer’s Handbook and an internationally recognised documentary film-maker. He has won many awards for his films on mountaineering and exploration including for his BBC film The Race for Everest.