by Mark Horrell
“One extra thing to worry about,” says Phil.
I finish the conversation with my confidence buoyed up a little, and looking forward to tackling the Banana Ridge again, but I really hope I don't have to descend it in a blizzard with those horrible powdery snow conditions for a third time.
35. Controversy on Nanga Parbat
Wednesday 15 July, 2009 – Gasherbrum Base Camp, Pakistan
More information is filtering through to us about the deaths on Nanga Parbat, though much of it is still hearsay. It seems the Korean woman, Go Mi-Sun, died on descent from the summit from a fall in jetstream winds, but it now seems there may have been more controversial circumstances surrounding the accident.
“There's trouble on Nanga Parbat,” Phil says, emerging from his tent. “It looks like the Austrian team pulled the ropes on the way down.”
“That's outrageous,” I reply.
But it seems Phil has more sympathy with the Austrians. “I'm fed up with the Koreans. F--- ‘em!” he says. “They're the only team here who've contributed nothing to the fixed ropes.”
It's true that both our team Altitude Junkies, and the Jagged Globe team, who between us have been doing almost all the rope fixing on Gasherbrum, have given the other teams plenty of warning that we'll pull the ropes down after we've finished with them unless other teams are prepared to contribute with equipment or financially. Everybody at Base Camp has chipped in apart from the Korean team who have been waiting, coincidentally, for the very same Miss Go who died on Nanga Parbat to arrive and make a decision as their expedition leader. It's possible that the Austrian team gave the same warning on Nanga Parbat, but it wasn't heeded by the Koreans, who climbed the fixed ropes anyway without having contributed, but this is speculation on our part. Even if it turns out to be true, pulling the ropes down while there are still climbers above who may be relying on them for descent, is knowingly putting lives at extreme risk.
“I fell three times descending the Banana Ridge the other day,” I reply. “If somebody had removed the fixed ropes while I was still at Camp 2, I'd be dead.”
“Dude, you would've arrested yourself before you'd fallen off the face,” says Phil. “You might've shat yourself, but you wouldn't have died. There's nothing wrong with that. I've shat myself on a mountain many times before.”
“You shat yourself on the way up,” I point out.
“Yeah, but that was because I was ill, not through fear,” says Phil.
As the conversation evolves from the serious to the banal and we move onto a discussion about the occasions Phil got caught short on mountains, I sense the moment has gone, but this has highlighted an age old problem with commercial mountaineering peaks for which this latest incident is a variant on a common theme. In the days when difficult mountains were only climbed by experienced climbers prepared to take their own risks, things were much simpler. But when a number of climbers of differing levels of experience, and accepting differing levels of risk, particularly in terms of safety precautions, are on a mountain together, who is responsible when things go wrong? And should people be competent enough to be able to descend when the safety precautions aren't there? If the answer to this is yes then I, for one, should not be climbing Gasherbrum. The tragedy on K2 on August 1 st last year, when 11 climbers died on a single day, was caused in part because inexperienced climbers were unable to descend safely after a serac collapsed and swept the fixed ropes away.
There's also the unavoidable issue of a handful of people attempting dangerous feats which are patently beyond their abilities. Only a handful of elite mountaineers have ever succeeded in climbing all fourteen 8000 metre peaks, and many others have died trying. But this does not seem to have deterred a number of lesser climbers – those like me who need fixed ropes for the hard bits – from trying to tick off all the 8000 metre peaks themselves. A number of these peaks, such as K2, Kangchenjunga, Dhaulagiri, Annapurna and Nanga Parbat, can accurately be termed “suicide mountains”, where campsites and routes between campsites are flush with objective danger such that climbing them becomes a game of Russian Roulette. Callous as it may sound, I find it much harder to summon up sympathy for climbers who meet their end in these circumstances, knowing the risks, yet ignoring them for the hope of a greater glory, and disregarding the high probability that other climbers may have to risk their lives trying to save them when things go wrong.
Whatever the answers to these difficult questions, our Sherpa team is pleased to discover the Korean team has now quit Base Camp and left behind a fresh bag of chillies.
36. Curious phenomenon of the magical rising tent platform
Thursday 16 July, 2009 – Gasherbrum Base Camp, Pakistan
A second day of good weather down at Base Camp, and I take the opportunity to re-pitch my tent. As one might expect when there is a river of shifting ice just a few inches below, my tent has been subject to considerable movement during the month since we've been here, but the effect has been most unexpected. It would not have surprised me if there had been some subsidence in the middle of the tent where my warm body had melted the ice underneath, but in fact the reverse has happened and the whole tent has risen up on a mushroom of ice. Unfortunately this pedestal is smaller than the base of the tent, so it's as though I'm sleeping on top of a small mound whose summit is in the middle of the floor. Towards the edges of the tent the floor falls away suddenly, producing a deep crack all the way round the perimeter of the tent where all my possessions accumulate. In reality, the sun is melting the glacier around the tent more quickly than the ice underneath it because it's not getting as much shade.
I re-pitch my tent in a dip, knowing now what I didn't before – that the tent will eventually rise up on a new platform rather than sink further into the dip. Now that I'm no longer perched on a bump in the middle of the tent, it's much more comfortable, and I'm no longer as close to the ceiling, so the tent interior feels like a high-roofed cathedral in comparison to what it was. I look back at the old wrinkled platform I'd been sleeping on in amazement, and wonder how I managed to get any sleep at all. When I first pitched the tent a month ago it was a flat area of gravel in a slight dip, but now it's a veritable jagged hillside riven with cracks. I'm no longer looking out across the icefall where I used to see little black silhouettes in the distance on their way up to Camp 1, as I've rotated my tent to face Baltoro Kangri, but it feels more peaceful down in the secluded hollow that I've chosen.
Gasherbrum I from my tent at Base Camp
When the sky is clear, as it is tonight, the period immediately after dinner at 8pm is a magical time. As the sun disappears behind the mountains at Concordia, most of the valley is in shadow, but the crowning glory of Base Camp – the huge summit pyramid of Gasherbrum I with its smooth wall of snow fringed by rock borders – remains lit up like a giant floodlit edifice. Across the Abruzzi Glacier the broad dome of Baltoro Kangri remains bathed in a purple glow, and the darkened form of Chogolisa has a sliver of orange light dappling its northern flank. This heavenly light show performs for us perhaps every three nights or so, and it's definitely the most memorable thing I've ever brushed my teeth to.
More bizarrely, Gorgan, Arian and Michael have decided that me brushing my teeth is a form of entertainment for them. Every evening as I scrub away on the raised moraine outside my tent, they line up outside the dining tent and watch. Weird.
37. Base camp boredom
Friday 17 July, 2009 – Gasherbrum Base Camp, Pakistan
The third successive clear day at Base Camp. We're all getting restless at the delays, but everyone who has tried to get above Camp 1 over the last few days has been driven back by the wind. Although it looks calm down here, appearances are deceptive. Still, at least the snow will have had time to consolidate. We're now talking about heading back up the mountain on Sunday or Monday in the hope the wind may have dropped by the time we get up there.
This morning I walk for about an hour up the moraine to get that one picture of Gasherbrum II f
rom the Abruzzi Glacier while the sky is clear. Although it takes around two hours of walking to get a single photo, it will hopefully have been worth it, and let's face it, I've got bugger all else to do today.
In the afternoon we have another marathon game of cards. I'm now concerned that I'm going to run out of books before the end of the expedition. I haven't brought along enough books to satisfy me for two months because I'd been hoping to swap with people, but apart from a copy of Bill Bryson's Notes from a Small Island , nobody's brought anything to read apart from trashy thrillers that I absolutely hate. Things have got so bad that I've ended up reading Dan Brown's Angels and Demons , about a ludicrous plot to blow up the Vatican, a book I would otherwise never have read in a million years. And do I feel enlightened for having done so? Do I b---ocks.
38. Philippe and Ian leave us; more base camp boredom
Saturday 18 July, 2009 – Gasherbrum Base Camp, Pakistan
Up at the crack of dawn, 5am, to bid goodbye to Ian and Philippe, whose expeditions are over and who walk out today with the German Amical group. We have breakfast in the cold and dark – Arian is far too cheerful for that time of the morning – but by 6am their porters have still not turned up, so I wish them a safe journey and go back to bed. Ian needs to go back early to sail in a yacht race. Gasherbrum was his second attempt at an 8000 metre peak. On Manaslu last year he also got no higher than Camp 2 before having to leave due to other commitments. After he left the weather immediately improved, and those who stayed behind reached the summit a week later. What are the chances of that happening here? Philippe on the other hand has already climbed Everest and completed the Seven Summits. His aim this time was to climb Gasherbrum I, Gasherbrum II and Broad Peak, and now there's no longer time to climb all three he feels he's failed – a strange logic, I feel – so he's going back without having climbed any of them.
Philippe looks up at the Gasherbrums
Shortly before lunchtime a rumour reaches us that the Jagged Globe group, who are leaving tomorrow, have some books they wish to leave behind. Excited, I walk over to their camp with Gorgan, only to be given five more trashy thrillers and an autobiography of Jeremy Clarkson, the whingeing automotive journalist. I've now finished Angels and Demons and have moved on to reading Patriot Games by Tom Clancy. Lord give me strength. It's certainly better than Angels and Demons , but towards the end it descends into a lengthy siege involving a bunch of gun-crazy American servicemen saving the Prince of Wales, our Prince of Wales I should say, from the IRA, one of whom ends up lecturing the poor prince on the best policy to appease the terrorist threat. The book was written in the 1980s, and I can't help reflecting on the irony of it all. God bless America. I've only brought seven books with me, and had hoped somebody in Base Camp would bring something else worth reading, but so far nothing. On the other hand, apart from discussions about the weather forecast and the possibility of our next summit push, the most common topic of conversation in the dining tent appears to be masturbation, so perhaps I shouldn't be too surprised about the quality of reading material.
39. Waiting on the weather
Sunday 19 July, 2009 – Gasherbrum Base Camp, Pakistan
Phil is beginning to get restless about the accuracy of weather forecasts and the fact that lots of people from other teams are going up and down the mountain while we've chosen to stay at Base Camp and wait things out. Today is our sixth straight day here, and although it's been predominantly fine and sunny throughout that period, the fact remains that nobody has reached the summit on either Gasherbrum I or Gasherbrum II in that time, and every day we've had reports of people driven back by the wind. Today was no different. The Iranian team was poised at Camp 3 on G2 overnight, and our very own Serap Jangbu Sherpa was at Camp 3 above the Japanese Couloir on G1, but both had to retreat today. Nevertheless the clock is ticking and it's true that weather forecasts have not been great. Rumours abound of the jetstream finally leaving the Karakoram towards the end of the week, and we're now thinking of leaving Base Camp for a summit push on Tuesday, with a view to staying up there and waiting for a window if necessary.
All of us – clients, Sherpas and kitchen crew – pass the time this morning in a team effort to move the dining tent a few metres away from a newly formed crevasse it's in imminent danger of falling into. My one bit of exercise this afternoon involves wandering around on the glacier near my tent to check that some new makeshift anti-balling plates I've cobbled together for my crampons don't interfere with their grip.
40. A thief on the mountain; more news from above
Monday 20 July, 2009 – Gasherbrum Base Camp, Pakistan
Today is our last day at Base Camp for a while. Although weather forecasts are not promising, everyone is agreed that after a week here we just need to get up the mountain and take our chances, as a number of other groups have been doing over the last week. So far, apart from Ueli Steck's solo performance a couple of weeks ago, there is yet to be a single summit on Gasherbrum I, Gasherbrum II, Broad Peak or K2 this year. There have been three deaths on K2, and we think one on Broad Peak, with a report that lots of people tried to summit Broad Peak a couple of days ago but had to be rescued by groups off K2. None of us have much confidence about the summit push we're about to embark upon.
There have been a number of reports of thefts from the higher camps of food, stoves, gas, and even some personal items like gloves, as well as tent poles. The prime suspect is a lone independent climber known as “Polish Jack”, who has been seen climbing up and down the mountain with only a very small pack. He is believed to have no tent of his own, stays in whatever tents are already pitched and vacant in the higher camps, and has no qualms about making use of any equipment he finds there. The leader of the Canada West group had a week's supply of food go missing, and we're all expecting to find things stolen when we go up tomorrow. Although everybody seems to think they know who the culprit is, there doesn't seem to be anything anyone can do to stop him. The agent he used to come here is a company called Jasmine Tours, who have no expedition leader and consist entirely of so-called independent climbers who, other than sharing base camp services, have no connection with each other. There have even been thefts reported within their group.
This morning Arian, Michael and I go out onto the glacier for a refresher in crevasse rescue from Gordon, who is a volunteer with the British Columbia mountain rescue service. Crevasse rescue is a fairly complicated procedure which involves the rigging up of an elaborate pulley system using prussics and carabiners in order to pull a potentially unconscious person out. Although I've been taught it a couple of times before, I'd never be able to remember the various steps in a live situation. Gordon's session is by far the most comprehensive I've ever had, however. We're out there for more than two hours, and each of us gets an opportunity to rig the whole contraption up ourselves. Who knows, maybe this time some of it might even stick. I ask Gordon whether most of his rescues are of climbers or skiers.
“Actually, most of them are just walkers who have got lost,” he says.
The session is also notable for the fact that it shows us a serious, sensible side to Gordon. Most of the time all we see of him is an impish little bearded leprechaun of a character sitting in the dining tent sipping tea and making wise cracks and cheap knob gags while we play cards.
Gordon and Phil moaning about the weather forecast
Meanwhile the news from higher up the mountain continues to be mostly bad, but shortly before dinner we do at least receive a piece of more positive news among the doom and gloom. John, the leader of the Canada West group, reports that two Polish climbers descending from Camp 3 on G2 triggered an avalanche and would have been swept off the mountain but for the fixed ropes they were attached to. There have also been some reports of climbers avalanched in the Japanese Couloir between Camp 2 and Camp 3 on G1, a feature we'd previously believed to be too steep to be a major avalanche risk. But just before dinner we learn that a group of Iranian climbers reached the summit of G2 to
day, despite the winds. They set off from Camp 3 at midnight, so the information we've received states, and reached the summit at 1pm after 13 hours of climbing. This is a desperately long summit day, only partly explained by the information that it took them several hours to fix the summit ridge because none of their team had much experience of fixing ropes, and we don't even know how long it took them to descend again. The news that despite less than ideal conditions the summit has finally been reached by ordinary amateur climbers gives all of us hope that our summit push may not simply be another forlorn attempt after all.
However, it should also be stated that there is nowhere like Base Camp for rumour and gossip, and every day we seem to hear stories that are later contradicted or denied. The story that Iranian climbers reached the summit today has been received by word-of-mouth from more than one source, but it wouldn't surprise me one iota if it also proves to be complete hogwash.
At dinner we're joined by a friend of Phil's called Tunch (short for Tuncay), a professional mountaineer from Turkey who has just come off failed attempts on K2 and is now looking to climb G2 as consolation. He turns out to be very personable and is keen to get to know our Sherpa crew. Immediately prior to K2 he climbed Dhaulagiri in Nepal, another 8000 metre peak which he says was very dangerous between Base Camp and Camp 1 because of the high avalanche risk. He has been up to Camp 2 on G2 in the last couple of days and tells us about a new hazard on the Banana Ridge. It seems somebody got caught short on the fixed ropes and left behind a brown substance so unpleasant that people have been preferring to detach their jumars and climb through that section unprotected rather than plough straight through it.