Thieves, Liars and Mountaineers: On the 8000 Metre Peak Circus in Pakistan's Karakoram Mountains (16 page)

Perhaps the issue of whether to go for the summit of Gasherbrum I has been resolved, but not in a way I'd have liked. We set off from Base Camp at 6am through the icefall for our sixth and final time, having received reports of its being in bad condition from those who have been through more recently. We've never had any major difficulties with crevasses and melting snow bridges this early in the morning, and because it's light by this time there's no problem seeing them and just jumping over, as long as we keep to the trail. Even so, in the early part of the icefall, I'm walking through it thinking I've had enough of this bloody mountain and just want to get home in one piece. It's not the ideal mindset to be carrying on the eve of a summit push.

Towards the top, while the weather is still fine, Phil suggests we wait and rest at Camp 1 for an hour or so before pushing on to Camp 2 before the snow arrives, which is predicted for later in the day.

I must be looking distinctly unimpressed because Phil, knowing my preference for short days prior to summit day, says to me: “You're looking at me like I'm a c—t!”

We arrive at Camp 1, and all the Czechs and Spaniards are waiting around, having been up here a day or two already. The thought occurs to us that they're waiting around for us and our Sherpas to go ahead and break trail to Camp 2 – it wouldn't be the first time this has happened. We also discover the expedition meals which the Sherpas brought down from Camp 2 are missing. While Polish Jack remains the main suspect, there have been several lone climbers making tilts above Camp 2 on Gasherbrum II through the various storms. When Polish Jack returned from his two week stint above Base Camp, his team's Pakistani liaison officer, inspired by Arian's example, asked him to empty his rubbish out. It was no surprise to him to discover that he hadn't brought any down with him. It helps when you can travel light by using other people's tents, gas and food, and dumping any leftovers in a crevasse.

The Koreans, who have been ascending the icefall alongside us, stop and begin pitching their tents at Camp 1, but Phil wants us to push ahead this afternoon, and head up the Japanese Couloir tomorrow, when we will have it to ourselves if the other teams choose to stay here another night. There's logic in this, but I know I won't be up to it physically.

“You can go up the couloir tomorrow,” I reply, “but I won't be going with you.”

I'm all for staying a night here at Camp 1 and going up to Camp 2 tomorrow, as usual. This is the third time Phil has suggested pushing two camps in a single day, and on both previous occasions they ended up arriving at Camp 2 knackered, while Michael and I had no regrets about arriving the following day in pretty good physical shape. This time Michael and Arian seem to be wavering, but Phil is very insistent that everyone should push on.

“You can stay here if you like,” he says, “but we know there's heavy snow on the way. If you want to break trail again tomorrow through all the fresh snow, that's up to you.”

In the end I feel I have to go with them, as I need someone to rope up with through all the crevasses, and don't want to end up stranded at Camp 1. By the time we set off at midday, carrying all the extra equipment we need for the higher camps, the snow has already started and visibility is very poor. Although he's brought four Sherpas with him, Phil ends up breaking trail himself because they're all more heavily laden than the rest of us.

As we make our way across the thick flat snow of the Cwm to the foot of the climb up to the Gasherbrum La, Phil can barely see the distance to the next bamboo wand in front of him. All the time I'm wondering why I didn't stay in camp, but whenever Phil stops and asks if anyone wants to go back, nobody volunteers but me, so we continue onward. Then, all of a sudden, after an hour of walking the sun comes out and everything clears. We're still on the plateau, but now we can see the route to Camp 2 rising ahead of us. A narrow gap between Gasherbrum II and Gasherbrum I leads up through a broken glacier on a series of snow ramps between crevasses. The col that we're heading to doesn't look that high from here, and we've been climbing imperceptibly ever since we started crossing the Cwm from Camp 1. I look at my altimeter – we're at 6000m, and we believe Camp 2 to be at 6250m.

We stop for ten minutes in the sun and look back across the Cwm to Camp 1. The whole area is riddled with crevasses, and to our right we can now see the whole of the Banana Ridge on G2 in profile – from this angle it looks much steeper than the 45 to 50 degrees I believed it to be when climbing it, and now I can see it's closer to 60 degrees. To our left avalanches rumble down the slopes of G1 and land not far from where we sit. The setting is idyllic, but deceptively hostile.

The sun becomes our enemy, beating down on us as we continue up the slope, turning the hard snow into slush as Phil continues to lead. An hour or two later he stops again on a platform broad enough to seat all nine of us comfortably. We've climbed about 100 metres and he thinks we're about halfway, an estimate that turns out to be wildly optimistic. I'm already tired and looking forward to getting the other 100 metres of slow plod that I believe there to be out of the way.

“Martha from the Spanish team says we've got to do an ice climb before we reach Camp 2,” says Arian.

I think he's trying to wind us up. “Oh, f--- off!” I gasp.

“No, she must mean after Camp 2 on the couloir, not before it,” says Phil. Everyone nods in agreement and we move on.

Climbing up to Camp 2 on Gasherbrum I

A little above this we have to put on crampons to surmount a steep section of ice. Above this is a crevasse above the trail which we have to leap upwards over, a tiring manoeuvre carrying big packs in the hot sun. Then a long angled traverse climbs at 45 degrees through soft snow. All the while I'm becoming more and more exhausted, but Temba at the front of our rope doesn't slacken the pace. I feel tugs in front of me as he tries to propel us forwards, and sometimes a simultaneous tug from behind as Gordon stops for a breather. It's hard work, and eventually I hear Gordon put his pack down while we're still on the steep traverse, having been hoping for a long time to reach the brow and see Camp 2 ahead of us. We're certainly high enough by my altimeter, but there's still no sign of the camp, and there's been no let up in the relentless climb. By now we've slowed to a crawl, and I have pins and needles right down my forearms to my finger tips every time I put my pack down. Gordon looks like he's going nowhere for a while, and Temba suggests to us that he, Pasang and Arian, who are in better shape, go on ahead to pitch the tents and boil water for a brew, while Gombu, Gordon and I continue more slowly behind. I still keep believing that it can't be much further to camp now, and Gombu's slower pace is much more comfortable than Temba's – he takes a few short steps then stops for a breath before moving again, and he keeps an eye on both of us to make sure he stops when we stop.

At some point during the ascent, I mentally say to myself that there's about another hour to go before we reach camp, but then when we finally crest the rise that has been above us for over an hour, we see another long slope with an ice wall at the end of it, some distance ahead of us, which the others are trying to fix a rope up, and we realise there are still many hours of ascent ahead of us at the pace we are going. Exhausted and disheartened, we stop to consider our options, and get on the radio to Phil.

“Gordon and I are f---ed,” I tell him. “We're thinking of camping out here and coming up tomorrow. The we'll decide tomorrow whether we're still going for the summit or going back down. Unless somebody can come back here and fetch our packs for us … The main thing is, whatever we do, we don't want to jeopardise Gombu's summit chances.”

“Dude, we're going to have a complete rest day tomorrow,” Phil replies. “We're all nearly as f---ed as you are. If we can all be together at Camp 2 it would be best. But if you are going to camp, I'd prefer it if you didn't camp where you are. I think you might get some debris if any of the seracs on this ice wall collapse.”

As I look up at the face the others are struggling to climb, my morale ebbs ever lower, but it's a long way back to Camp 1 and I'm running out of water. Gombu gets out his stove and we stop and rest while he melts some snow to replenish our water bottles. He also gives me a Snickers bar which has melted to liquid in the hot sun, but I've not eaten since breakfast and desperately need the energy, so gratefully suck chocolate and nuts off the wrapper. When we've finished filling our bottles, the others are still struggling to fix a rope on the ice wall.

“I can tell you now, and not going to get up that thing,” I tell Gordon and Gombu, “not in my current state, carrying a big pack.”

“If you dump your pack, no one's going to come back for it tonight,” says Gordon. “They're all knackered, too. We could cache most of our kit and just take the stuff we need for sleeping.”

“Mark, if you want to camp here, then we camp here. I have tent. It's safe,” says Gombu.

In the end we decide to walk a little bit higher up the slope to the serac wall, as Gordon says he thinks it will make a safer camp, but when we get there it clearly won't. With seracs behind and cracks in the snow in front indicating hidden crevasses, we'd be treading in a minefield outside our tent. We decide to push on. The sun goes in just as we're arriving at the foot of the ice wall, and it suddenly becomes much colder. I use a somewhat unorthodox technique to surmount the wall. I'm so tired that I can't contemplate doing anything too technical as I'm sure I'd fall, so I simply haul myself up the vertical section with my arms, using my jumar in my right hand and pulling on the rope with my left. At the top I collapse and wait for the others, Gombu immediately behind me and Gordon a little while later. From there it's a ten minute walk across a wide plateau into camp, and I arrive with cold fingers at 8pm after a 14 hour day. It's without a doubt the most exhausted I've ever been on a mountain. I've had some tough summit days, but nothing to compare to this, and we still have two tough days of climbing to go if we're to reach the summit. I look at my altimeter and read 6450m – 200 metres more of ascent than we'd been expecting. It means we've climbed a total of around 1400 vertical metres today, the majority of it laden down in the heat of the afternoon sun.

The others arrived an hour before us. “Well done. Really well done,” says Arian as I approach the camp.

But I'm certainly not in triumphant mood. “Not well done at all. It's stupid to get so exhausted two days before summit day.”

I've already been toying with the idea of not making another summit attempt for a day or two now, and at this very moment as I arrive at Camp 2 I'm feeling that the decision has been made for me. There are two golden rules of performing at high altitude: don't over-exert and keep hydrated. I've broken both of these today, quite unavoidably and in spectacular fashion. I unpack all my things and, armed with a mug of hot tang Michael brewed up while he was waiting for us to arrive, collapse straight into my sleeping bag, very demoralised.

As if to prove a point, while I lie in my tent this morning recovering from yesterday's exertions, I hear first the Korean team, and then the Spanish and Czech teams arrive from Camp 1. A combination of the trail broken by ourselves, walking in shade on still frozen snow, and above all, a night of rest and only 500 metres of ascent, has made the climb from Camp 1 a doddle for them compared with the ordeal we went through. In addition, they were able to use the fixed rope up the ice wall that the others struggled to put in place last night. After attempts by several members of the team, Arian was eventually the one who managed to free climb the wall and put an anchor in place. It's only just 9 o'clock by the time they've all got to Camp 2. It's taken them barely three hours, compared to the 8 hours it took me and Gordon, and they've arrived fresh while we now have to spend a day recovering.

But it turns out the Koreans are not so wise, after all. After a brief rest six of the team – Miss Oh, her two Sherpas, two High Altitude Porters (HAPs) and her cameraman – then push on up the Japanese Couloir to Camp 3. I can't help thinking they're about to make the same mistake we did, and will be too tired for anything very strenuous tomorrow. In fact, the task they have set themselves is even greater.

I find it difficult to leave my sleeping bag this morning. Though I know if I'm to push on up the couloir tomorrow I can't stay here all day and need to get up and move around. After I've lain here for an hour or so talking to the others through the tent walls as they watch the Koreans, Michael brings me out of my lethargy.

“Mark, you've got to come outside. The scenery's amazing!”

I know he's right. I put on my boots and down clothing, and crawl out. Camp 2 sits in the middle of a wide, flat snowy col, and is one of those breathtaking places you know immediately that you're privileged to experience. To the west the plateau drops away to the Gasherbrum Cwm through the ice ramps we ascended yesterday. Beyond, the broad fluted peaks of Gasherbrum VI and Gasherbrum V form a backdrop. To the east the plateau rises slightly before dropping away into China. Beyond is nothing but a bank of puffy clouds billowing up from below. To our north are the flanks of Gasherbrum II, a forbidding wall of avalanche-ridden snow, while to the south is the upper section of Gasherbrum I, a black trapezium of rock riddled with snow chutes and ice fields. Cutting down diagonally through its centre is a narrow cleft in the rock: the Japanese Couloir, the steepest and most difficult section of the ascent. It is on this feature of the mountain that all our attention is focussed as we watch six dark figures ascend it. It occupies the whole of tomorrow's ascent from Camp 2 to Camp 3, and is so narrow that it has the reputation of being a very committing climb: once you've started up with others following behind you, there's no turning back if things become too difficult.

With the Koreans out of the way there are still three teams poised here at Camp 2 to continue their summit push tomorrow. I have a very uneasy feeling about this situation. Korean climbers are notorious for their “death or glory” approach to mountaineering. Miss Oh's compatriot and competitor in their race to bag all the 8000 metre summits, Miss Go, lies dead after a fall on Nanga Parbat three weeks ago, and the Spanish team already has one dead member after a reckless solo attempt on G2 a fortnight ago, which the rest of the team seemed disturbingly blasé about. If 20-odd climbers push for the summit at the same time in the high winds we're expecting, then an accident seems inevitable. This feeling doesn't diminish as we continue to watch the Korean climbers ascend. In fact, it gets stronger.

The die-hards at Camp 2 on Gasherbrum I during their final (unsuccessful) attempt to salvage a summit from the expedition. The author is kneeling down at the front of the group.

The route they're taking is not what we've been expecting. Instead of going straight up the couloir, they climb vertically up a dark rock band at the bottom of it until they reach a very steep snow ramp which runs above the couloir, right up to a snowfield which marks Camp 3. For some reason they are climbing this snow ramp instead of the couloir.

It takes them several hours to ascend. One figure at the back, who turns out to be the cameraman, is very much slower than the others, and drops further and further behind them. The third figure, which we assume to be Miss Oh, is keeping so closely to the second one that Phil thinks she is being short-roped by one of the Sherpas (literally, pulled along on a “short rope”). Eventually they disappear behind a rock buttress which forms the near side of the couloir, and for two hours we can no longer watch their progress until they emerge the other side. They are approaching the snowfield now, and nearly at Camp 3, but only five figures have appeared. Where is the cameraman?

Suddenly Gombu cries out: “Avalanche!”, and we look up. A large quantity of snow is sliding rapidly down the snow ramp, directly along the route the Koreans took up it. At the bottom of the ramp a substantial quantity of this snow shears off straight into the couloir. Clipped onto a fixed rope, somebody in the path of the avalanche may have been able to survive, but equally, the avalanche looked big enough to be capable of ripping out the anchors. If I had any lingering doubts about whether to go up tomorrow, this dispels them in the strongest way possible. Whether you go up the snow ramp or the couloir, it seems no part of the route is safe.

A few minutes later, a black speck emerges from behind the bottom of the rock buttress. It's the cameraman descending, and it's possible that his retreat is what triggered the avalanche. If this is the case then what might twenty people tramping up the couloir tomorrow do? He struggles down the snow ramp agonisingly slowly; then at the foot of the rock band beneath the ramp, he stops. Two more figures appear from behind the rock buttress on their way down. These are the two HAPs, and it becomes apparent that the cameraman is stuck and is waiting for them to come and help him. Time ticks by and a cold wind blows spindrift across the mountainside. It's an hour and a half before they reach him, and by that time he must be freezing. But his ordeal is over and we watch the three of them complete the descent and stagger into camp.

Gordon and I decide to retreat tomorrow. Predicted high winds, a “clusterf—k” in the couloir (to use Phil's expression) using a dodgy route up last year's ropes, and an avalanche straight down the route of ascent, make this decision a no-brainer for us. Phil, Tarke and Gombu are all of a similar mind, and decide to descend with us. Of our two young guns, Michael is wavering, but Arian is still keen to push on, heedless of the many warning signs. I overhear a conversation between Arian and Gordon in the tent adjacent to ours as news comes over the radio that one of the Bulgarians has just summited G2.

“So we could have summited G2 – there was a weather window,” says Arian.

“And the Korean lady will probably summit G1 tomorrow,” says Gordon, appearing to agree.

But I'm longing to shout at them to put things in perspective. Just because someone summits a mountain doesn't mean that you should have gone with them. We all have different levels of ability and willingness to take risks. The Korean lady appears prepared to die in her struggle to climb mountains, and one day she probably will. The Bulgarian has already been up G1 in the last few days, and is almost certainly a very strong climber. Like Ueli Steck, he may have climbed the ridge between Camp 2 and Camp 3 on G2 in order to avoid the higher risk of avalanches on the snow slopes of the normal route after all the snow that fell during last week's storms. He would have needed to free climb the technical rock section beneath the summit without ropes, a section which ultimately killed a lesser climber, the Spaniard Luis. Arian is a better climber than me, and stronger, but he's no Ueli Steck or Veikka Gustafsson, or perhaps the Bulgarian, and this is his first 8000 metre peak. I'm not convinced he realises what he's letting himself in for.

But I say nothing. He and Michael are young, strong and enthusiastic. I don't want my own cautiousness to stop them trying what their hearts are set on. Only when Arian hears the weather forecast from the Spanish team – 40 to 50 kmh winds for the next few days – and he sticks his head into our tent to ask Michael whether they should still go up, do I make a lame attempt to dissuade them.

“I don't want to sound miserable, but I think you'd be stupid to attempt it. 40 to 50K winds is not a summit window, and an avalanche on the route? You'll have other chances to climb an 8000 metre peak.”

Yet the Spanish team still plan to ascend, and they have a pretty girl on their team called Martha who seems to have taken a liking to Arian. I don't think my opinion holds much sway!

Later in the evening I have another toilet ordeal. It's the first time I've worn my down salopettes when I've needed to relieve myself, and I'm not quite sure of the appropriate technique. Michael has a similar predicament, but his Mountain Hardware down suit has zips right down the side of each leg, and he doesn't have any problem when the time comes. My Rab down salopettes have a “shithole” between the legs, but this doesn't help when you're wearing trousers underneath. In the end I have to undo the braces, loosen my jacket and then take the whole thing down in order to be sure of safety while squatting. All the time while I struggle, one of the HAPs from the Korean team is watching from his tent and laughing at me, which doesn't make it any easier.