by Andrew Lock
As he had never actually participated in an Everest expedition, Tashi came to me for help. He proposed that we create a joint Australian–Macedonian expedition. The Macedonians would then be able to achieve their goal, and a few Australian climbers would be able to make their own bids for the summit. Fresh from my recent disappointment, I agreed. It turned out to be a big mistake. It would be the most dysfunctional expedition I would ever go on, and would deteriorate into a sordid episode that ultimately ended in tragedy.
We achieved some minor sponsorship, but the majority of the funding for the expedition came from the Macedonian community in Australia, whose members worked tirelessly to raise the money. While they were doing that, we learned that Tashi had independently approached the watchmaker Rolex and organised sponsorship for himself. I was our expedition treasurer, and after this I started to get a bad feeling about the whole enterprise.
The team comprised Tashi, a friend of his, Mike Wood, and me, together with the two Macedonian climbers and a friend of theirs, who would come to Base Camp. We agreed the Macedonians would recover their friend while the rest of us climbed to the summit, and we would share resources and logistics and work together to achieve both outcomes.
I agreed to Tashi being the expedition leader, on paper, as that was likely to attract more media attention and sponsorship. It turned out to be a disastrous move. Tashi, using the paper authority of his position, began making other arrangements without our knowledge. He invited Michael Groom to join our expedition for free, and then agreed to allow a very inexperienced climber, David Hume, to buy his way onto the expedition for about $15,000. Tashi also arranged for one of his uncles, Lobsang Bhotia, a Sherpa living in Darjeeling, to join the expedition as a team member.
I saw no reason to offer Michael a free trip when the rest of us were working hard to raise funds for the expedition. It was clear, though, that Tashi was hoping Michael would help get him to the summit. David was a different issue. Despite bringing some valuable income to the expedition, his inexperience meant that he would need careful supervision on the mountain. Only Tashi’s uncle Lobsang brought any real benefit to the group, as he was a strong and experienced climber. He would climb as a team member, not as a support Sherpa.
The dramas didn’t end there. We planned to use oxygen for the ascent, so I researched and found an American supplier of a new system called POISK. But before I made the purchase, Tashi advised me that an uncle of his in Nepal had a supply of the same oxygen, left over from another expedition, which we could get for a cheaper price. He guaranteed us that it was exactly the same system. When we arrived in Nepal, though, we found out that it wasn’t the same system at all. The bottles were too small and too heavy, meaning that it would be impossible to carry enough of them to get us to the summit and back on a continuous flow.
Despite all these issues, the expedition went forward and we travelled to Base Camp in April 1993. But our group remained disjointed and there was constant acrimony between the team members, particularly between Tashi and me. The team split into factions: Tashi, his uncle Lobsang and Michael Groom in one; me, David Hume and the two Macedonians in the other. I found the whole thing extremely distasteful and not at all in the spirit of mountaineering.
As expected, David struggled on the mountain. One day, after we’d carried loads from Camp 2 to Camp 3, he returned six hours after the rest of us, stating he’d never been on such steep terrain. In reality, that face was only 30 to 40 degrees. This is not to speak ill of David; he was just inexperienced. But that inexperience meant that he needed constant supervision, which affected everyone else’s climbing ambitions. Tashi and Michael weren’t interested in watching over him, and so it was left to me and the Macedonians to keep him alive.
As with all things, though, there was good among the bad. The Macedonians were great guys and David, in particular, provided some rich entertainment at base camp. One day he decided to have a haircut. Several of us offered to do it for him but he insisted on doing it himself. What could go wrong? I found the first-aid kit and we sat down to await the inevitable, which came soon enough when he tried to cut through a particularly thick clump of hair, only to find out that it was his ear. Luckily, he hadn’t cut it off, but he had snipped it in half.
At base camp I met Michael Rheinberger, a veteran Australian Everest expeditioner. Mike was considerably older than me, perhaps in his fifties, and had made seven Everest undertakings over the years without ever reaching the summit. He’d tried different sides and different routes, but there had always been something to prevent him from reaching the top. He could see that our expedition was a complete disaster, and he kindly shared a cup of tea with me every now and then. He was the wise old man of the mountain, and our chats gave me enough motivation to continue with the climb.
Despite the disharmony, or perhaps because of it, I became determined to ensure that the Macedonians were treated as equals. Since we had the wrong oxygen system, there wasn’t enough of it for both teams. I located some spare tanks in a Russian expedition, which I bought for Alex and Dimitar, and it turned out to be a better system than the one we’d bought earlier.
I found myself climbing predominately with Alex and Dimitar. While Alex was strong at altitude, Dimitar struggled, and they reached a decision to abandon their attempt to locate their friend’s body, as Alex couldn’t manage it by himself. This was particularly disappointing for him, because Alex was a national mountaineering hero in Macedonia, and there was considerable expectation that he would recover his comrade’s body. It was the right decision in the circumstances, though.
Rather than give up on the mountain, Alex was still keen to climb. I’d come to like and respect him more and more throughout the journey. He was the most generous person and enthusiastic climber I’d met. We agreed to climb together for the top.
For the summit push, the factions climbed independently. Groom, Lobsang and Tashi were in the first group, to be followed the next day by me, Alex and David. Lobsang and Tashi used the oxygen system sold to us by Tashi’s uncle, but the bottles were so small and heavy that it was impossible to carry enough oxygen to complete the climb and return safely.
As the first group made its attempt on the summit from Camp 4 on the South Col, my team climbed from Camp 3 to Camp 4, so that we would be in a position to go for the top the next day. A couple of hundred metres above Camp 3, at around 7500 metres, we met Tashi coming down from the South Col, using oxygen. He told us that snow blindness had stopped him on his way to the summit in the middle of night. Somehow, it appeared, he was miraculously cured in the harsh light of day.
Tashi told us that he’d climbed with Lobsang to 8300 metres but that when he’d given up, Lobsang had continued for the summit, despite the inappropriate oxygen system.
Alex and I kept climbing and arrived at Camp 4 in the early afternoon, where we sheltered in our tent and spent hours melting snow to drink. Just as the pot was full of water, David arrived. We yelled at him not to enter but he didn’t seem to understand, perhaps because of the bandage on his ear. He dived into the tent, knocking over 3 litres of water, which soaked our sleeping bags, down clothing and everything else before freezing almost instantly. Frozen clothing does not insulate at all well, and I might have taken an ice axe to David’s head if Groom hadn’t returned to camp at just that moment, having successfully reached the summit.
Too exhausted to speak at first, he needed assistance. Disconcertingly, Lobsang was still high on the mountain but Groom didn’t know whether he was okay or not. As the day closed, a wind storm developed, which prevented us from going up to look for him.
The storm persisted into the next morning, so all the other teams, as well as Groom and Hume, descended to lower camps. Alex and I stayed at Camp 4, hoping for a break in the weather so we could search for Lobsang. We thought that he might have taken shelter in a tent on the Balcony, which was several hundred metres higher and hosted a rarely utilised Camp 5 that another expedition had installed.
/> It was now our second day above 8000 metres and we were feeling the effects of our long stay, but the storm eased a little and we took turns to go out and search. Late in the afternoon Alex found Lobsang’s body at the bottom of the face above the South Col. His oxygen mask and regulator were in his backpack, meaning that, as we suspected, he had run out of oxygen. He would have saved the mask and regulator because of their value. Once out of oxygen, it seemed likely that he’d suffered severe hypoxia and made some kind of mistake that led to him falling down the face.
What a waste. Lobsang had made his own choice to continue when Tashi had given up, but he did so with an inappropriate oxygen system. I wonder if his family in Darjeeling were ever told why the expedition had been using the wrong oxygen equipment?
It was too late in the day for Alex and me to descend, so we were forced to spend another night on the South Col, despite the likelihood that the altitude would incapacitate us. By morning, we were so fatigued from our long stay at 8000 metres that we literally crawled down the mountain to a safer altitude. Lobsang’s body was later recovered and cremated according to Sherpa custom.
After a few days’ rest at base camp, I made ready for another attempt, but David insisted that if I went back up, he would also try again. While I respected his tenacity, I believed that it could only result in another accident, so I abandoned my plan. Thus ended, thankfully, the worst expedition I have ever taken part in. The only good to have come from it was the friendship I established with Alex. We went on to become the best of mates, and still are to this day.
I returned home angry and disenchanted. I’d joined a disparate group of individuals, not a unified, functioning team. I made a decision that, from then on, I would only climb big Himalayan peaks with friends or climbers with whom I’d already climbed elsewhere. This may have been idealistic—perhaps too much so—but the events I’d witnessed fired my resolve to never allow such a tragedy to occur again.
Postscript
Unfortunately, Mike Rheinberger failed to summit during his 1993 attempt on Everest. He returned yet again in 1994, this time with a professional guide, and together they made a documentary of their climb. Finally, after eight expeditions, Mike achieved his dream and stood on the summit of Mount Everest. On the descent, however, he succumbed to cerebral oedema and collapsed. He and his guide bivouacked high on the mountain, but by morning Mike was in a coma, and the guide had to be rescued. Tragically, Mike died and never had the chance to enjoy his summit.
In 1995, David Hume, against my strong advice, launched his own Himalayan expedition to climb another of the 8000ers, Mount Makalu. He reached the summit but made a basic mistake during the descent and was killed in a fall.
3
THE SAVAGE MOUNTAIN
Climb if you will, but remember that courage and strength are naught without prudence, and that a momentary negligence may destroy the happiness of a lifetime. Do nothing in haste, look well to each step, and from the beginning think what may be the end.
Edward Whymper
MY NEWFOUND CLIMBING resolution would soon be tested. Before going to Everest, I’d applied for a permit to climb K2 during the Pakistan climbing season of June to August. Standing 8612 metres high, and second only to Everest in altitude, K2 is generally considered to be the hardest mountain to climb on Earth. Apart from its altitude and generally poor weather, it is extremely steep and requires excellent technical-climbing ability. I hoped that by coming straight from Everest I’d be well acclimatised and really fit, and would therefore have a pretty good chance of making it to the top.
A mighty and intimidating massif, K2, like so many of its peers, has a controversial history of skulduggery, triumph and tragedy. It received its unusual name in 1852 during the Great Trigonometric Survey of India, when it was assigned the designation ‘K’ for the Karakoram Range and ‘2’ since it was the second peak to be surveyed in that range. It is completely coincidental that it is also the second-highest peak in the world.
K2 was almost the first 8000er ever to be climbed, when an American team attempted the ascent in 1939. Expedition leader Fritz Wiessner, a German who lived in the United States, climbed to within 250 metres of the summit, at which point his climbing partner, a Nepalese Sherpa, begged him to stop as he was fearful of mountain spirits that might come with the onset of darkness. They agreed to continue climbing in the morning, but by then the weather had deteriorated and they’d missed their chance. On the descent, four members of the team were killed.
In 1953, just weeks after Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay successfully summitted Everest, another American expedition launched a bid for the summit of K2. One of the members, Art Gilkey, developed blood clots and the team abandoned their climb to lower him down the mountain. During their descent, the able-bodied climbers left Gilkey anchored to the snow while they reconnoitred a safe route down. When the climbers returned to get Gilkey he had disappeared. It seems likely that he was swept away by an avalanche, although a theory exists that he threw himself from the mountain to allow the others to save themselves. Today, a memorial cairn at the base of the mountain is known as the Gilkey Memorial and, sadly, it is now adorned with many, many plaques in memory of climbers since lost on this killer mountain.
The mountain’s summit was finally achieved by an Italian expedition in 1954, but the ascent was mired in controversy. One of the mountaineering legends of that era, Walter Bonatti, supported the summit pair in their push for the top by carrying oxygen up to the high camp for the summiteers to use. But the summiteers later claimed that Bonatti had either used or released some of the oxygen from the cylinders due to his jealousy of not being a member of the summit team, and that they would not have succeeded except for their own incredible fortitude. Bonatti denied this but was ostracised for decades. He was exonerated only when one of the summiteers, Lino Lacadelli, wrote his memoir fifty years after the event, admitting that Bonatti had done nothing wrong. Understandably, there was little forgiveness from Bonatti.
The mountain’s most infamous season occurred in 1986. Thirteen climbers, including some of world’s best alpinists at the time, perished as a result of falls, avalanches, crevasses and altitude sickness after being trapped by a storm high on the mountain; thus earning K2 the nickname ‘Savage Mountain’.
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Once I was back in Australia after the Everest climb, my intended climbing partner for K2 told me that he could no longer go. I was really disappointed. I had no one else to climb the mountain with and, given the mountain’s fearsome reputation, I knew that I needed to climb with a skilled partner. It also meant that I would lose the $3000 I’d paid to the Pakistan government for the expedition permit—a hefty amount of money. I resigned myself to having to try again the following year. Just weeks before the climbing season began, however, my trekking agent in Pakistan told me of a German expedition that needed another member, because one of their team had dropped out.
I was dubious. I’d just sworn to myself that I would not climb with people I didn’t know, but the agent then told me that the team actually comprised three Germans and the mighty Russian climber Anatoli Boukreev. This changed my mind and I accepted.
My flight to Islamabad in late June 1993 was uneventful, although I did have some new experiences. Despite sitting in a non-smoking row, I found it a little difficult to see whether the seatbelt sign was illuminated or not, due to the voluminous clouds of cigarette smoke that billowed across from the smoking rows in front and behind. I decided against making a comment when I saw that the passengers on either side of me, in the one non-smoking row on the entire plane, were also using the dying butts of their last cigarettes to light the next ones. In any case, it appeared the seatbelt sign didn’t work.
I was enlightened as to my fellow passengers’ general perspective on fate, however, when we started our descent from the skies. The stewardess announced, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, Insha’Allah’—meaning ‘God willing’, or ‘by the grace of God’—‘we shall shortly be la
nding at Islamabad International Airport.’ I hoped that the pilot would have something to do with it, but I was also thankful that God was both willing and graceful that day.
Stepping off the plane was an incredible shock. The temperature was well over 40 degrees Celsius, and the humidity in the high nineties. It was like being thrown into an overheated sauna and within seconds I was drenched in sweat.
I soon caught up with Anatoli and the Germans at our hotel. Reinmar Joswig and Peter Metzger, both aged fifty-one, were the joint leaders of the expedition, and their friend Ernst Erberhardt, fifty, was the other member. We also met a Pakistani Army officer, Captain Asif Rashid, who was to be our Liaison Officer throughout the expedition. He would accompany us on the trek to base camp and remain with us to assist in our negotiations with porters and the local mountain people. He would also ensure that we abided by the mountaineering regulations set by the Ministry of Tourism.
After receiving the usual briefings from the ministry, we travelled to the northern town of Skardu, the last significant settlement on our way to the mountain. While the rest of us trusted in God again and took a quick 30-minute flight, Peter drew the short straw and set off up the tortuous Karakorum Highway in a decrepit but garishly painted truck with all our expedition equipment.
This road, known to many as the KKH, was a joint project between Pakistan and China. It is the highest paved highway in the world, and the main thoroughfare from Islamabad to its northern neighbour. Around 1300 kilometres long and built over a period of nearly twenty years in the 1960s and 1970s—with 35,000 workers and more than 800 deaths—it winds its way through precipitous rock and dirt mountains that are all but bare of vegetation. The road clings to dangerously loose slopes, often unsuccessfully, and carries you above seemingly bottomless gorges that are lined with thundering torrents of water. Many trucks, buses and other vehicles have ended their days—and those of their passengers—in these gorges, as they clawed their way tortuously to a high point of 4700 metres on the Kunjerab Pass, the border between the two countries.