No Way Down

by Graham Bowley

  Skog was already climbing ahead and he waved to her. His oxygen tank had nearly run out, so Skog dropped hers in the snow by the side of the route for him to collect as he climbed up. She could go on without oxygen. And then she waved to him one last time and was gone. For his part, Bae took a spare headlamp from inside his jacket and asked a Sherpa to give it to Skog at the summit. Just in case she needed it on the way down.

  Alberto Zerain had pushed on ahead, and now he sat at the summit of K2 staring at his wristwatch. The watch was his father’s, a gold-faced Zodiac. He had made perfect time, but the climbers below him were late.

  Zerain was forty-six years old but he looked younger. He had short black hair and his suntanned skin showed off his fine cheekbones. He came from Subijano, a land of rocky hills, pine trees, and yellow stone houses on the southern edge of Basque country in northern Spain. He gazed down the length of the snowfields toward the distant lip of the diagonal that led down to the Traverse. Surely, he thought, the others would emerge soon. When they did, what would they see? A man in red crouched on the edge of a snowy ridge, sipping tea.

  Back down the mountain, he had waited for two hours at the end of the Traverse. He had had to wait. When he began to climb across the ice face, he had handed his camera to one of the Sherpas—he wasn’t sure of his name—so that the man could take a picture of Zerain opening the trail on the Traverse. He was the first person to cross it this year. But the Sherpa hadn’t followed him across straightaway, and so Zerain had to wait. He felt he could not go to the summit without it; these days, sponsors wanted proof you had actually been to the top. He also didn’t want to lose the camera. It was an Olympus, and he had bought it in Skardu on the journey in.

  Eventually his patience ran out, and he had stood up and gone down a little way to look along the Traverse. The scene shocked him.

  Earlier, Zerain had fixed the rope along the Traverse. On the way up, at the top of the Bottleneck, another one of the Sherpas had brought the length of rope to him, and though Zerain had thought it looked old, not fit to tie his shoes with, he had fixed it up along the ice face anyway.

  He knew there had been meetings down in Base Camp but he had kept away from them so he knew nothing of what they had decided.

  He also had three screws, though for a while he thought he had lost the third screw, and at one point he had had to dangle from his ice axe until he managed to find it in his backpack.

  Now five people were bunched together on a single section of that old rope, edging slowly up and across in the bright sunshine, all their weight on the same screws he himself had rammed in. The Sherpa to whom Zerain had given his camera was back down in the line.

  Fine, he thought. No camera.

  By that time, it was 11 a.m., and Zerain had turned and climbed up onto the snowfields. At last he could see how far he had to go to the summit. Reaching it was possible, he told himself, nodding, psyching himself up. He was feeling good but he had to tell himself this. He felt a burning inside, the gusanillo, the passion to go on. It looked so close.

  He was barrel-chested, with a confident, strutting gait. When he walked, his arms swung at his sides, and he gave the impression he could walk forever. He ran mountain marathons in the Basque hills. He had climbed in the Alps and in the Andes, where he met his wife, Patricia, a translator. He had been to the Himalayas. He had raised two sons; now that they were both nearly teenagers he could travel the world and climb again. But climbing was only part of his life, and not the most important thing.

  He was attracted to K2 because of its shape, a beautiful pyramid. You could fit sixty Matterhorns in it. And he was attracted because of its dangers; only the most extraordinary climbers dared to challenge it.

  He had arrived in the Himalayas in June with a team sponsored by, among others, Marqués de Riscal, the Basque wine company. He had intended to climb Broad Peak, a nearby mountain, first but two friends were airlifted out and Zerain also got headaches near the top. He knew when a mountain didn’t want him—he had an inner voice that told him when to go up and when to go down—so he decided to switch to K2, an hour’s walk along the glacier.

  Alone among the other teams, he gravitated to the Pakistani HAPs in the Serbian expedition, who made him welcome. He helped to fix the ropes on the Abruzzi route and in return they let him share their tents.

  The porters worked hard, each day shouldering heavy loads of oxygen tanks, ropes, and the Serbs’ food up the mountain. They mostly had only wheat and dried apricots to eat so Zerain shared his cheese from his Tupperware container and sometimes made them a treat of strawberry-flavored milkshake. One night, he cooked risottos and pastas—though they gave these away to their Serbian clients.

  Now, as Zerain waded through the thick snow on the summit snowfields, he discovered that despite his hope the summit wasn’t close and the going was tough, intense, far harder than he had anticipated. His boots packed fresh snow at every step. He went from side to side, looking for ice or harder snow to walk on. His aching legs strained forward only to slip back. Sometimes he found nothing at all beneath him and was suddenly swallowed to his waist in cold snow. He scrambled quickly to his feet.

  Only once had he witnessed death on a mountain. It was 2000, he was making a film for Spanish television, and he was on his way down from the top of Everest when he was told someone had fallen. He could see a body six hundred feet below, and when he rushed down, the climber was lying on the snow, unable to speak, and there was blood everywhere. Zerain did not know who he was. He tried to put some gloves over his hands but they were rigid. Then he tried to take his rucksack off because the straps were suffocating him, but the climber stood up and then fell and began to slide. The backpack came away in Zerain’s hands and the climber fell nine hundred feet toward the Rongbuk glacier.

  His name was Stolz, he later found out, and he was from Denmark.

  Zerain crisscrossed the summit snowfield from left to right, prodding gingerly with his ice axe. He had wrapped its handle in silver tape to prevent the skin of his fingers from freezing onto the cold metal. He was tempted to escape the clinging deep snow by crossing far to the right, onto the ice of the serac. He strode across, his back bent under the sun. But then he left the serac behind him and was forced to plunge back into the soft snow.

  As he had done since the base of the Bottleneck, he was opening the trail alone, and the snow was deep. The going was so slow that he had thought it would be only a matter of minutes before the pursuing group caught up with him. The ones who were using supplementary oxygen would be faster. Before long, they would be speeding along behind him and then they would share the work of opening the route.

  But no one had appeared. He had gone on, feeling weary, keeping every unnecessary effort to a minimum, because even stopping to open his backpack cost energy. About three hundred feet before the summit, he had watched carefully for hidden crevasses. Then at last, he had climbed the final steep, diagonal ridge and had come out alone onto the summit of K2. The first climber to reach the top in 2008.

  The afternoon was perfect. Not the slightest cloud. The summit was a 150-foot sloping snow ridge. He climbed up the ridge to get to the highest spot. About fifteen feet below the top on the other side was a comfortable flat area of about eighteen square yards where he could sit.

  The surrounding mountains receded into the distance, lesser giants of the Karakoram compared to K2. On one side, they marched northeast into China, on the other into Pakistan. India, China, Pakistan—they all seemed close from up here. And Zerain could see the back of Broad Peak, the Gasherbrums, Nanga Parbat, and many more mountains, all of them wondrous sights. So too were the swirling patterns of the glaciers, like patterns on butterfly wings, 11,800 feet below on the valley floor.

  Wait until he told his friends and family back home, Zerain thought. He wished he had his Olympus. He opened his eyes wide and scanned the horizon so that even without his camera he would remember every detail. He gloried in the view; he felt he could see
every brushstroke.

  The summit was broad, but he eyed it warily. He couldn’t be sure of the safety of the snow. Maybe it was rock he was treading on or maybe it was an overhanging lip of snow waiting to collapse under him. He didn’t trust it. Although his gaze wandered far, he drank some tea and stayed sitting and didn’t move around much.

  Down below, at the lip of the long snowfield, the other climbers were at last spitting up out from beneath the serac. Zerain checked his watch and frowned. He was surprised that they were still intending to shoot for the top.

  He knew what they were feeling. Up here, on the summit slopes, you were close to the gods, or at least you felt you were. But you forgot there was work to be done to get up and down again.

  Watching the climbers ascend the mountainside toward him, Zerain closed his eyes and felt sleepy. He lay back on the snow. The tea was warming him. The sun was on his face. He had had no sleep for more than twenty-four hours, since he had woken up at Camp Three.

  To avoid the crowds going up the Abruzzi and Cesen routes, Zerain had climbed directly from Camp Three the previous night, arriving in Camp Four at midnight. He had waited under the quiet stars for people to leave for the summit. There had been no moon and, when he had gazed along the Shoulder, Zerain could barely make out the Bottleneck. He didn’t want to be up there alone.

  Soon he had noticed movement and a Sherpa approached from one of the tents.

  “Namaste!”

  It was Pemba Gyalje, the strong Sherpa in the Dutch team. Gyalje peered forward to see who was lurking near the tents, and Zerain explained who he was.

  A few other climbers gathered with Gyalje at the edge of the camp and then headed out onto the Shoulder. Zerain joined them, third in line. Not far out of Camp Four—they had been walking for probably forty minutes—the two climbers ahead of Zerain stopped abruptly and started to pull rope from their backpacks.

  Zerain was confused. At this point the Shoulder was as flat as a cow’s meadow. Why were they doing this now? He couldn’t see the other climbers’ faces behind their balaclavas and hoods. Maybe, he thought, the Sherpas and HAPs were concerned their clients were not skilled enough for this terrain. Grasping the rope, he realized that if he helped them, they would be faster.

  He went over the fresh snow up the Shoulder, the other climbers passing more rope to him from behind as he marched on. He went to the right, to the rocks, a little way out of the full glare of the serac above.

  Finally, as the sun rose higher, Zerain had fixed two screws near the top of the Bottleneck and then waited for the others to bring more rope for the Traverse. He had 100 feet of rope in his backpack but they said they were bringing extra rope of their own, so he had waited, perched beneath the serac, so close then that he had been able to study it properly for the first time.

  That was hours ago now. Abruptly, Zerain forced his eyes open again. He was still sitting on the summit. If he took a nap now, he might never wake up. He checked his father’s watch: 3:40 p.m. Time to go down. Forcing himself upright, he climbed down from the summit.

  When, about an hour later, he reached the other climbers and began to pass them, they greeted him warmly. Those who were using oxygen had made the quickest time. The Sherpa returned the Olympus. The South Koreans’ leader, Kim, so far as he understood, thanked Zerain for placing the rope on the Bottleneck and for opening the Traverse.

  In return, Zerain smiled and said thank you, but all the while he wanted to tell them to turn back. It is late! he wanted to shout. Turn back with me. Is it worth the risk?

  One figure in the line was waving especially enthusiastically. He was wearing an oxygen mask and goggles and his face was partly covered by his hood. Hugues d’Aubarède took off his mask and wrapped his arms around Zerain.

  “Alberto!”

  “Bonjour, Hugues.” But Zerain looked at d’Aubarède and thought that he would rather be seeing him in Base Camp already.

  “How was it?” said d’Aubarède, speaking in French. He seemed tired, but excited.

  “Be careful,” Zerain said. “It is very bad.”

  He wanted to say more. Just a few words might have persuaded d’Aubarède to turn around. But the Frenchman’s burly HAP hovered at his shoulder and Zerain did not want to interfere. The HAPs were being paid to get their climbers to the top.

  He felt sorry for his friend because going down would be hard.

  “Good luck, Hugues!” Zerain said.

  “I will see you,” said d’Aubarède, smiling.

  Zerain passed Cecilie Skog, who asked him how far it was to the summit. The first time Zerain had met Skog was three weeks earlier at Camp Two. It was soon after he had arrived on the mountain, while he had barely been able to speak because he was so tired after a day of climbing, Skog had marched into the camp, calling out greetings to her teammates. Her voice had seemed so happy. He had thought, This is a strong woman.

  Skog still looked full of energy, even now. But Zerain knew he had to answer her carefully since he might give her false hope or wrongly discourage her.

  “With a good rhythm, it should take you no more than two hours,” he said.

  She grinned, seeming to take heart. She looked so beautiful in the sunlight.

  After saying good-bye, Zerain climbed down in the direction of the Traverse. Up above him, the line of climbers was spreading out, still meandering on toward the summit.

  He wanted to shout, “It’s okay if you turn around!” He hoped none of them would become the latest name on the Gilkey Memorial, the monument at Base Camp to the people who had lost their lives on K2.

  On the Traverse, he found the old rope and the screws that he had punched in still fixed to the ice. No one had replaced them after all.

  About two-thirds of the way across toward the Bottleneck, six orange oxygen bottles dangled from one of the screws and Zerain wondered who could have left them there.

  At last he reached Camp Four. Outside one of the tents, a single climber was sitting and brewing some tea. One of the Americans, he thought.

  Although the tea looked tempting to Zerain, he wanted to push on down. He nodded at the other climber and waited for a moment, still hoping perhaps for an invitation because the tea looked so good. But the climber said nothing, so Zerain left the tents behind. He climbed down the steep ridge to Camp Three, where he had spent the previous night and where he found two of the Pakistani HAPs from the Serbian team and was glad to share their tent.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  5:30 p.m.

  A head of Cecilie Skog, one of the South Koreans’ Sherpas climbed up the final steep ridge and disappeared over the crest onto the summit.

  A few minutes later, Skog’s lanky Norwegian colleague, Lars Flato Nessa, overtook four members of the South Korean team and followed the Sherpa onto the top. Alberto Zerain had told Skog the last stretch up the snowfields would take two hours and they had done it in two and a half. She was relieved.

  Fifteen minutes later, she joined Nessa on top of the world. She relaxed in the warm sunshine.

  “Congratulations, Cecilie,” Nessa said. The fair-haired Norwegian was grinning.

  “We have done it.” Rolf would be pleased.

  The day was so hot that Skog had gone without gloves and jacket since the Bottleneck. She was wearing the purple down ski pants that were a gift from Stein Peter Aasheim, a friend who was on the first Norwegian expedition to Everest in 1985.

  After the breathless exertions of the ascent, the conditions on the top were perfect. There was no wind. Skog took off her woolen hat and concentrated on the peaks around her. This was the first time she and Nessa had been able to see the Chinese side of the mountain. The ranges of perfectly formed peaks surprised them. They could have been standing in the Alps. Above them, the sky still shone a brilliant blue but the heat of the day was gone and the air was cooling.

  The summit ridge was crisscrossed by footprints. Proudly, Skog and Nessa took out the Norwegian flag and posed in front of Nessa’s Sony Cyb
er-shot. Skog also held up an orange banner from her hometown soccer team, Alesund. Skog was a soccer fan and a decent player; she had spent eight months as an au pair in Britain, in Bromley in Kent, and she had played for the Millwall Lionesses, one of the country’s women’s teams.

  They followed a few more rituals planned for this special moment. The Norwegians had left their clunky satellite phone behind in one of the lower camps—they joked it was the size of a shoe box; it was like something out of the 1980s—so they had no way to call to tell anyone of their triumph even if they had wanted to. They took out three plastic red roses that they had kept around Base Camp to make the tent look pretty. They also unpacked a special hat that Bae had given them to carry to the summit—a pink rabbit hat with long, floppy ears. Bae had carried it with him on his expeditions to the North and South Poles, and when he stopped after the Traverse he had asked Skog to take it with her. Now, Nessa pulled it over his head with a big smile as Skog took a picture.

  This one is for Rolf.

  They shot some video. Skog said she was glad to reach the summit but she felt exhausted and was eager to start the descent. She was not celebrating yet.

  By now, the other members of the South Korean team were arriving and spreading across the summit. Earlier, while he had been waiting for Skog, Nessa had spoken to the South Koreans’ Sherpa. The Sherpa introduced himself as Pasang; he looked like he was in his early twenties. There was another Pasang in the South Korean expedition so he was called Little Pasang.

  Even though they had been on the mountain together for weeks, Nessa had never spoken to him before. They talked about the peaks around them and Little Pasang described the countryside in Nepal, and his family. They took photographs and Nessa shared some water with him.

  Now, Skog and Go Mi-sun posed for a few shots side by side, two women together on the peak of K2, a mountain that at times in its history had been unkind to women. Of the first five women who had climbed K2, three had died on the descent, and the remaining two had died on other mountains shortly afterward. This was a moment Skog and Go wanted to celebrate.