Summit 8000

by Andrew Lock

  At Camp 2 Silvio tried to contact the Nepali authorities with his satellite phone but couldn’t get a connection. It actually proved easier to ring his wife in Italy and have her ring Nepal, and she successfully organised the chopper. Brendan, a trained medic, attended to the walking wounded while I stayed with Christian. He was in extreme pain from the internal injury—so much so that he was waving both arms around, including the one with the dislocated shoulder. My attempts to calm and reassure him achieved nothing. It was frustrating beyond words not to be able to do anything more.

  Gradually, he stopped writhing and lay still. I hoped his pain was starting to ease. His tight grip on my hands slackened, though, and when I looked into his eyes I could see the life in them literally disappearing. Brendan did a quick check of his vital signs and immediately commenced cardio pulmonary resuscitation for some minutes, but it didn’t help. Christian was dead.

  I turned my head away and looked up to the mountain’s summit. Another life lost. Are mountains really worth this price? As I looked up, both to avert my eyes from a team member who’d died in my arms and also to seek some divine reasoning for this loss, the most incredible thing happened. At 5600 metres, on the side of one of the highest mountains in the world, a butterfly flew past me. Right in front of me. Amid the tragedy of Christian’s death, this beautiful, gentle life form fluttered by.

  It sounds crazy, and perhaps I was desperately clutching at some kind of spiritual hope, but my first thought was that it was Christian’s soul. I was moved and inspired beyond words. It was uplifting. I felt almost joyful. Here was life, completely out of place, in the midst of death. I shall never forget that feeling.

  *

  There were still three other injured climbers who needed to be evacuated, so we covered Christian with a sleeping bag and escorted them down to the glacier. The helicopter arrived soon after. With the walking wounded on board, the pilot also managed quite a daring flight up to Camp 2 to retrieve Christian’s body.

  The rest of us descended to Base Camp. All the others decided to cancel their expeditions and return home; the only dissenter was me. While I was saddened by Christian’s death, and all the more aware of my own mortality as a result of it, I wasn’t traumatised by it. He was another victim in an ever-growing list of climbers who’d paid the price for their passion, but he’d known the risks, particularly on this brutally savage peak. I’m also sure that I was feeling more settled than the others because of my encounter with the butterfly. More than anything, though, I was still committed to my goal and wanted to continue.

  I pointed out that nothing would be gained from quitting. Christian’s death would seem all the more pointless if we just gave up. I also argued that there was now one less avalanche that would come down the mountain. Some might see my attitude as callous, but for me it was practical, given that we were there to climb the mountain. To quit at that point would just mean we’d have to return another time and face all those risks again, not to mention the expense and the time commitment. But the others were too depressed to continue.

  I rang Julie and told her about the accident before it hit the press. She wanted me to come home with the others, but I couldn’t get over the feeling that I’d be throwing away a perfectly good chance to climb this mountain. Sure, it was dangerous, but it would always be dangerous. I just couldn’t see any reason to give up when so much work had already been done. I decided to make an attempt by myself.

  After one day’s rest, I set off alone back up to Camp 1 and continued climbing up to Camp 2. In the short time since we’d been there, though, there’d been a heavy dump of fresh snow and I needed help to break through it. By the time I reached Camp 2, I was wading in deep, wet snow. Without the physical support of the others, I couldn’t continue in those conditions. Reluctantly, I accepted that the expedition was over, ending my first attempt on Annapurna. The experience made me think extremely hard about how I would attempt the mountain again—who I would climb with and which route I would choose. The French route on which we’d been avalanched had truly been death’s bowling alley, and I had no desire to experience that again. But I knew I would return to Annapurna.

  The positive lesson I took away from this expedition was in relation to butterflies. I have never deliberately hurt animals, but ever since my experience when Christian died, I have taken the utmost care not to harm butterflies, even when driving. I wonder what the Police will say if I one day have to tell them that I ran off the road to avoid a butterfly?

  *

  By 2005, having long since left full-time employment, I had quite a varied existence. I was consulting in risk and crisis management, leading treks to remote areas around the world, lecturing and guiding on small Antarctic tourist vessels, and taking on interesting mountaineering projects. I was also delivering keynote leadership and motivational presentations around the country, which I really enjoyed. In the post-monsoon season of 2005, I took a job to guide a Spanish climber, Inigo de Pineda, on both Cho Oyu and Shishapangma.

  There were several other climbers in our team at Cho Oyu. They climbed independently, but all were under my oversight. One of the climbers was Billi Bierling, a public-relations professional who has worked for many Himalayan climbing seasons in Kathmandu as an assistant to Elizabeth Hawley, the 8000-metre expedition chronicler. Ms Hawley has long been revered by climbers for her almost mystic ability to know exactly when they have arrived in Kathmandu both before and at the end of their expeditions, and in which hotel they’re staying. She then ambushes them in the foyer, requiring them to fill out her information sheets. Billi has now taken on that role with gusto and is regularly seen cycling around Kathmandu, preparing her own ambushes of unsuspecting climbers to elicit the expedition details.

  On the mountain that season, although on a different expedition, was one of world’s leading 8000-metre climbers, Iñaki Ochoa de Olza from the Basque country in the western Pyrenees of Europe. I’d met Iñaki in Pakistan in the 1990s and had bumped into him from time to time since then. He had a reputation as a very strong and capable climber, and a man with an easygoing, relaxed nature. Over several conversations we agreed to look for opportunities to climb together in the future.

  Silvio Mondinelli and Mario Merelli were also there. This was the third time I’d shared a mountain with them. My circle of friends and social scene were becoming more and more populated with high-altitude mountaineers. It seemed perfectly natural, though, and reinforced my feeling that the mountains had become my real home.

  At Cho Oyu’s Base Camp our food was the usual fare—buffalo meat, local vegetables, dahl and rice—but to our delight Inigo produced a great quantity of beautifully cured, ever so finely sliced, melt-in-your-mouth Spanish jamón. He worked as a salesman for a company that produced the cured ham. I doubt he achieved significant sales in the backblocks of Tibet, but he certainly won our appreciation. Reinforced by our diet of wafer-thin pork slivers, and inspired to get up the mountain and back to Base Camp as quickly as possible so we could enjoy more carnivorous delights, Inigo and I soon summitted Cho Oyu and moved on to Shishapangma.

  While the two base camps were only 50 or so kilometres from each other, they were worlds apart. Cho Oyu’s is on a glacier with rocks, ice and dust everywhere, whereas Shishapangma’s is on grass with a bubbling brook nearby. The psychological revitalisation we experienced from this link to life and warmth was tangible, and it made the expedition infinitely more enjoyable.

  Shortly after we arrived, however, a sad procession passed us by. Two Tibetans were leading a donkey with a body strapped over its back to the road head, followed by the dead climber’s teammates, their expedition over in tragic circumstances. We were told that the climber had developed pulmonary oedema but that his inexperienced friends had failed to recognise the symptoms. He’d died alone in his tent during the night. They were a small team with limited experience and had engaged a company to deliver base-camp logistics only—meaning they had no guide or expedition manager. While I’m
an ardent supporter of learning to climb and developing altitude skills over many years rather than being guided, I also think that, if you choose to shortcut that process and go with a commercial group, you should spend the money that will buy the leadership and experience you lack. A body wrapped in rice bags and trussed with rope was a high price to pay to save a few dollars.

  It was a timely reminder for me, also, not to be tempted to push Inigo too hard in pursuit of Shishapangma’s true summit, despite my personal ambition to reach it. Inigo was very keen to reach the real summit, but I knew I had to balance his enthusiasm with sound leadership. Small and softly spoken but surprisingly strong at altitude, he intended to take up climbing as a profession after this expedition. At the time, however, he lacked significant experience, so I wasn’t prepared to lead him up anything other than the normal route on Shisha’s north side. Guiding a client is quite different from climbing with an experienced partner, and I took very seriously my responsibility to keep him as safe as possible. It would not have been appropriate to put him into a technical climbing situation where we had to rely on each other.

  We hoped that the snow on the North Face would be firm enough that we could traverse from the north ridge over to the main summit but, as in most seasons, it was dangerously unstable. As we climbed, I stepped out onto the face several times to assess whether a traverse to the true summit was feasible, only for the slope to crack and threaten to avalanche. Inigo had to be satisfied with the lower Central Summit, the usual end point for guided clients on that mountain.

  During our walk out to the road head, we spoke at length about the risks inherent in mountaineering. Inigo had performed strongly on both peaks and had gained a good understanding of the skills and experience he’d need to take on other 8000ers, but I impressed upon him that he was entering what I considered to be the most dangerous game in town. Already I’d lost many friends over the years, either on my own expeditions or on others, and we’d seen the tragic end to another climber’s dreams on this expedition. I encouraged Inigo to consolidate his experience on less technical peaks, and at lower altitude, in order to develop his climbing and risk-management skills. Sure, you need luck in the hills, but without sound skills you are a dead man climbing. With them, you just might survive. And the mountains only reveal their incredible secrets to survivors.

  *

  Back in Kathmandu, I caught up with my many mountaineering friends in downtown Thamel, the tourist region of ‘K-town’. Some had been successful in their projects, others not. We congratulated, commiserated, laughed, mourned, ate and drank. Hard. More than anything, we bonded, as only comrades who’ve shared adversity can bond. I was happy to be in their company.

  I’d just as happily have stayed there, but I’d planned a climbing holiday with Julie to the Wadi Rum in Jordan and needed to get back to reality. As much as the mountains felt like home, I had another, semi-normal, life back in Australia. But as the plane climbed steeply out of the Kathmandu valley and the distant Himalayan giants stood above the clouds, as though to bid me farewell, or perhaps taunt me, I was already planning my return. I had four peaks left before I would be finished with the project: Shishapangma, Makalu, Kanchenjunga and Annapurna.

  It seemed Shishapangma was becoming my nemesis. I’d been unsuccessful on my first attempt, broke my bum before I even reached the mountain on my second go, and was unsuccessful with Inigo on this last expedition. I needed to finish it off, to find an achievable route and do it.

  Makalu, the fifth-highest mountain in the world, and Kanchenjunga, the third-highest, would both be tough. But the real thorn was Annapurna. I had unfinished business there. While my teammates had been perfectly within their rights to abandon the mountain, I felt that the effort, the expense and the risks we’d taken on that expedition had been wasted when we were so close to summiting.. As much as my stomach tightened and my jaw clenched when I thought of the almost unjustifiable dangers there, I would return. It was the jewel in the crown and I had to climb it. I would find the strongest, most motivated climbing partners, and I would return.

  Postscript

  Christian Kuntner died after having summitted thirteen of the world’s fourteen 8000-metre peaks. Annapurna was to have been his last 8000er.

  Mario Merelli, having successfully reached the summit of the world’s most dangerous mountain, continued expeditioning to other 8000ers but died in a rock-climbing accident in Italy in 2012.

  Inigo de Pineda, having achieved his first 8000-metre summit on Cho Oyu and having had a near miss on Shishapangma, was inspired to climb more of the world’s highest mountains. Despite my strongest advice to consolidate his experience, in 2007 Inigo joined a Spanish team to Kanchenjunga, one of the toughest peaks in the world. He was killed in a fall during the expedition.

  Despite meeting Marty Schmidt many times in the mountains over the years, I didn’t ever get to climb with him. In 2013, having been unsuccessful in an earlier attempt on K2 with Hector Ponce de Leon, Marty returned to the mountain with his son, Denali. They were both killed by an avalanche at Camp 3.

  11

  A BIG DAY OUT

  … by bringing myself over the edge and back, I discovered a passion to live my days fully, a conviction that will sustain me like sweet water, on the periodically barren plain of our short lives.

  Jonathan Waterman

  IN OCTOBER 2005 I started planning for the following year, and contacted my 8000-metre friends from around the world. By early 2006 I’d organised to join with a very strong team of high-altitude specialists for another attempt on Kanchenjunga. My 2003 experience had taught me that this mountain deserved enormous respect, in particular because of its savage storms close to the summit. I wanted to climb with similarly experienced people, but this time I wanted conservative, careful teammates.

  I could not have chosen a better group than Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner, the Austrian woman I’d fallen for on Manaslu in 2002; her new husband, Ralf Dujmovits, whom she’d fallen for on Manaslu in 2002; Veikka Gustafsson from Finland, whom I’d met on Annapurna in 2005; and Hirotaka Takeuchi from Japan. While they would climb as a team of four, I joined with two Portugese climbers, João Garcia and his friend Tose Antonio. I’d climbed on Nanga Parbat ten years earlier with Garcia, although he’d since suffered extreme frostbite on Mount Everest in 1999, resulting in the loss of most of his fingers, part of his nose and much of the skin from his forehead. Although independent groups, we would share the base camp and the work on the mountain.

  We trekked in through very mountainous countryside in the far east of Nepal, an area that at the time was heavily controlled by the Maoists. At one point on the trek, a Maoist ‘representative’ came to demand a fee of 5000 Nepali rupees per person (about $100) for permission to trek through their region. The reasoning was quite simple and understandable. Expeditions like ours paid significant permit and visa fees to the Nepali government, but very little if any of those funds found their way to the impoverished villages in the areas where we climbed. The Maoists therefore imposed their own levies, backed up by significant firearms.

  Apparently our employment of about 100 local villagers as porters and the purchase of numerous supplies along the trek didn’t satisfy the Maoists’ tax department. Their representative was about seventy years old. Hunched over, he could barely have hurt a fly, but it was absolutely clear to us that if we didn’t pay up, we’d be visited by an armed group of Maoists and, at the very least, robbed of all our equipment. There was a palpable threat in his words. We paid up and were efficiently provided with a Maoist receipt, lest we encounter another group of the bandits. It seemed they only taxed you once.

  Leaving the Maoist threat in the lowlands, we trekked over numerous mountain passes that connected ever more remote valleys. These were inhabited by hardy rural folk who farmed rice and corn and grazed their livestock, and whose one link to civilisation was their battery-powered radios, from which Nepali music blared incessantly. Up on the passes, though, we were treated
to silent forests of blossoming rhododendrons with flaming red, pink and yellow flowers that overhung the track, creating a magical tunnel of colour. Gradually, we left the dense forests behind and emerged onto open hills of alpine grasses dotted with grazing yaks and intersected by bubbling mountain streams. It’s at this stage of most treks that I really come to life, when the views open up and the air takes on a chill, crisp feel. My heart beats faster, my walking pace increases and my eyes strain at each bend in the trail to catch my first glimpse of our objective.

  The final two days of our trek to Base Camp traversed a long and convoluted glacier, at the head of which towered Kanchenjunga, her massive five-headed summit shrouded in wind-whipped fury some 3500 metres above us. It was cold and difficult walking, so we equipped the porters with warm clothing and good footwear. Nevertheless, only a few porters were prepared to carry the loads over this tougher terrain, which meant that it would take us a week or more to get all our equipment to Base Camp, delaying our start on the mountain. This is one of the inherent risks of climbing in the Himalaya. Many expeditions have failed to reach the mountain they were there to climb when porters have refused to continue or demanded additional wages that the expeditions couldn’t afford. Now that a number of old Soviet helicopters have found their way to Nepal, climbers’ reliance on porters has been partly relieved, but these helicopters crash relatively frequently, and those that don’t are in such demand that delays can still occur.

  In order to progress our acclimatisation while we waited for our gear, we trekked ahead to Base Camp, arriving on 16 April. A Swiss expedition led by Norbert Joos, a highly experienced mountaineer with twelve 8000-metre summits to his credit, was already there, as well as an Ecuadorian climber, Ivan Vallejo, who was well on the way to finishing his own quest to climb all fourteen 8000ers.