Clouds from Both Sides

‘If I could choose a place to die, it would be in the mountains.’

Clouds from Both Sides is the autobiography of Julie Tullis, the first British woman to climb an 8,000-metre peak Broad Peak and the first to reach the summit of K2, the world’s second-highest mountain.

A truly remarkable woman, Julie describes her early days in a London disrupted by World War II; her family life, climbing, teaching and living by the sandstone outcrops of High Rocks and Harrison’s Rocks in Tunbridge Wells, Kent; and her experience as a high-level mountaineer and filmmaker. Tullis demonstrates her determination and self-discipline through training to black-belt standard in both judo and aikido, and never allows financial concerns to keep her away from the high mountains a place where she felt at peace. Filled with vivid accounts of frostbite, avalanches, snow blindness and exhilaration alongside her climbing partner Kurt Diemberger, Clouds from Both Sides takes us to Yosemite, Nanga Parbat, Everest and K2.

First published in 1986 before her death, and with an additional chapter written by Peter Gillman documenting Tullis’s final, fated expedition to K2, this story is as relevant and awe inspiring today as it ever was. Tullis’s achievements are timeless and her attitudes and opinions far ahead of their time. Clouds from Both Sides is a tribute to the memory of an inspirational woman determined to strive for her dreams, an extraordinary account of her adventures and an exhilarating testament to her courage.

Author Biography

Julie Tullis was, in her lifetime, Britain’s leading female mountaineer. She was the first British woman to climb an 8,000-metre peak – Broad Peak in 1984 – and summited a second, K2, in 1986 before dying in a storm on the descent. She spent her childhood in post-war London and, when not travelling the world to climb, lived with her husband Terry and children in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, teaching climbing to the disadvantaged and children with special needs on the southern sandstone. Julie trained to black belt standard in both judo and aikido, and as well as being a high-altitude mountaineer, she worked as a filmmaker alongside Austrian climber Kurt Diemberger, with whom she climbed K2 on 4 August 1986.