This is one of the greatest survival stories of all time. This is the definitive story of the society of the snow.

On 13 October 1972, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, carrying a team of young rugby players, their families and friends, took off for the very last time. A deadly miscalculation saw F571 crash directly into the Andean mountains to devastating consequences: the body of the plane broke violently into two. In the weeks that followed, those that survived the crash emerged to fight a gruelling battle for their lives.

Waiting for a rescue team that didn't arrive, the survivors became fewer and fewer in numbers. Stranded alone on a glacier at an altitude of four thousand meters, they had to face brutal temperatures of thirty degrees below zero, lethal avalanches and the loss of friends and family, with no access to supplies, food or water. In order to survive, they had to do the unthinkable . . . It wasn't until seventy-two days later that the sixteen people left standing were able to reach safety.

Alarmingly gritty, moving and powerfully told, journalist Pablo Vierci recounts this unsettling story of survival in intimate detail. Drawing on interviews with all the survivors speaking for the first time, Society of the Snow recreates the tragedy of the crash, uncovers the narrative of those that did not return and explores how the incident radically redefined the rest of the survivors' lives.

Ultimately, this is a touching testament to the strength of faith, friendship, and the resilience of the human spirit.  

Author: Pablo Vierci