Above the Clouds

by Anatoli Boukreev

  Of course, this rule does not apply to anyone who is ill in the mountains. It is crucial for an athlete and especially a mountaineer to listen to his body, to feel it intuitively. Though it is possible to overcome fatigue with inner motivation in the early stages of an expedition, too much work is unnatural and can affect resilience. Serious fatigue can go unnoticed by someone who is physically fit. No dramatic effect from overwork will be appreciated until it is too late. I know from personal experience that fatigue subtly accumulates in the body, only to manifest at the most stressful moments, usually up high. Insidiously it can leave you without strength and the ability to perform. In mountaineering, much that happens and many decisions depend on external factors over which we have no control, such as the weather and the conditions on the route. The most important individual responsibility on an expedition is balancing personal needs so you maintain your strength and health while still performing in accord with the group’s desires and objectives.

  The next morning after a leisurely breakfast we left our tents at nine o’clock. True to my intuition, my load felt heavier and I could not maintain my previous day’s speed. The weather was no help. We unloaded our supplies at Camp II in the kind of gusting wind that comes before a squall. That afternoon the trip down to Camp I took an hour instead of thirty minutes. Everyone was moving slower.

  I arrived at the tents ahead of my friends. Ernst and I began fixing dinner. Not feeling well, he had turned back halfway to Camp II. At his age it was natural for him to require a longer period to adjust to increases in elevation. Andy reported that he was not experiencing problems with the new altitude, not surprising since he had recently camped at eight thousand meters on Everest. When they arrived, looking really fit, Reinmar and Peter said they felt well. They were not novices and knew what to expect of their bodies, thanks to a good foundation of experience at high altitude. Judging from the huge supply of food we had carried up, I could see that they had no problems with digestion.

  Appetite at high altitude is an individual thing. For me it is generally best to consume as little as possible, and then only those foods that are metabolized quickly. That night I tried to joke with Reinmar, saying that if we ate half the store of provisions we had carried up, our bodies would be so occupied digesting that we would have no ambition to make it to the summit. That was taken as a criticism. Because of nuances in languages, it was easy for us to misunderstand one another in subtle ways. We used English to communicate, which, except for Andy, was not anyone’s native tongue. Reinmar was comfortable speaking it, but my English is far from good. The effort we each had to make to understand one another created a fatigue of sorts.

  The sixteenth greeted us with miserable weather. I made hot chocolate for breakfast. Certain we were going down, I wanted to hold out for flat-bread chapatis and eggs at Base Camp. Reinmar and Peter were ready to carry up another load of supplies to Camp II. I thought we would be better off waiting out the bad weather in Base Camp. At the lower elevation our bodies could recuperate from the previous days of hard work. When the weather improved and we were rested, a big supply carry to Camp II would be easier. Then, after one night sleeping at Camp II, we would be acclimated well enough to go up the next increment of elevation. Offhand, I remarked that if we exhausted ourselves carrying loads high in bad weather, we could be compromising our ability to climb when the weather improved.

  Reinmar had a short answer to that: “If you are feeling tired, then you should go down and rest, but the team is going up.”

  I did not think I felt any weaker that anyone else, so I gave up trying to make my point of view understood. I broke trail for them in fresh falling snow. Behind me, Reinmar and Peter were slow; the days of work without respite had affected their pace. My intuition and experience were telling me we needed time for rehabilitation after carrying so much weight to 6,800 meters.

  Despite my concerns, I sympathized with their point of view. Peter and Reinmar had committed great effort and energy to organizing the expedition for all of us. Certainly I had contributed nothing in those areas. The bad weather ate up many of our days. It would have been unfair if after so much work they did not have time for an assault on the summit. Reinmar’s departure deadline hung over us and influenced all our decisions. Willingly, I cooperated with them. They were my leaders and were responsible for our climbing plan. I wanted to work for them and for our success.

  Initially, I presented a completely different acclimatization strategy for their consideration. Appreciating the problems that the delays in Islamabad and the weather had cost our expedition, I suggested we focus on achieving a good acclimatization. I thought we should make a schedule of trips to allow our bodies to adapt to each new level of altitude before beginning to carry up the heavy supplies. I suggested we should carry minimum food and equipment to Camp I, spend the night, and go on to Camp II at 6,800 meters, sleep one night, and descend to rest at Base Camp. Then subsequent trips to 6,800 meters carrying weight would be easier for our bodies. We could ferry up summit-day supplies to Camp II before going on with minimum supplies to acclimate at 7,300 for a night, come down again, and move the loads up to 7,300 when we went up for the final acclimatization trip to 7,900 meters. That way we would have preliminary acclimatization at the level of our last camp, and we could climb lightly loaded to 7,300 meters on the summit bid.

  I did not invent this scheme. It was tested and proven by many men on tens of Soviet expeditions to 7,000- and 8,000-meter-high peaks. From my first steps as a mountaineer in the Almaty club, our experienced coaches taught me that formula.1 It had worked for me on every expedition. Our experience proved that multiple nights at progressively higher altitudes without descending for the body to recuperate was a less effective method. Actually, that kind of advance diminished the body’s ability to perform work. In prolonged oxygen-deprived circumstances, working to capacity, lactic acid and other waste products build up in the muscles, which produces weakness and fatigue. Sleeping and eating at high altitude, one cannot replenish the body’s energy stores or eliminate waste. Digesting complex food at high altitude, the body actually spends energy, and many foods cannot be digested in that atmosphere. A fit body is naturally resilient and responds to rest at lower altitude.

  Properly acclimatized, like me, Peter, Reinmar, and Andy were able to climb one hundred meters an hour above 7,500 meters. The summit of K2 is 8,611 meters high; I outlined a schedule that would have prepared our bodies to work ten hours above 7,900 meters on summit day. There was no guarantee that in adhering to my schedule we could summit. In the forbidden zone, fate and luck play their hand. But the commitment of time and effort to adequate acclimatization improves personal performance and decreases the odds of developing acute mountain sickness. Proper acclimatization is the most important variable of safety an individual can affect when climbing at altitude. Ignoring that responsibility, a climber raises the risk to himself and his team.

  Reinmar listened to all I had to say, as well as I could explain it, and made a good-natured response to my ideas and concerns. I understood from his gentleness that he did not want to offend me. He conceded my plan might be correct if we were attempting a “sports climb,” but countered that our group had variable physical conditions and we were climbing the normal Abruzzi route. For our purpose he felt that the demanding acclimatization would not work, that it might even be dangerous, exhausting us before the summit bid.

  My friends’ good judgment had brought them success on Nanga Parbat, Broad Peak, and Gasherbrum, all about 8,100 meters high. My reservations were based on my experiences climbing Everest and Kanchenjunga. K2 is 8,611 meters high, and performing above 8,500 meters, especially without bottled oxygen, is different from climbing lower 8,000-meter peaks. I did not feel it was my place to argue about our tactics because I was just a member of the expedition, not the leader. Also I respected that the Russian scheme was not the only way that high mountains were successfully climbed.

  Peter and Reinmar had confid
ence in their plan. During the summit bid we were going to acclimatize to 7,300 meters and to 7,900 meters as we ascended. Now I am certain, given the turn of events, that my concerns were well-founded. Any climb higher than 8,500 meters without the use of supplemental oxygen is a major athletic undertaking, and there are rules you cannot break in the mountains. That day I had no wish to see my reservations validated by the high price we paid. My hope was that we would make it to the top and back to Base Camp without tragedy.

  On the sixteenth we made our deposit at 6,800 meters and returned to Camp I exhausted. The weather left us wishing for better. Peter gave Andy and me permission to descend to Base Camp. Our absence would spare the food supplies we had struggled to carry up. To avoid the problems of crossing the glacier at dusk, Reinmar and Peter chose to stay the night at Camp I. Going down, we met Ernst coming up with a load from Base Camp. We told him Peter and Reinmar planned to descend the next day. Finally feeling good, Ernst wanted to spend the night at an elevation higher than Base Camp and went up.

  To my surprise our descent took only two hours. The temperature on the glacier was so much warmer than above, we were able to remove our outer layers of Gore-Tex clothing. Back at Base Camp, Andy and I headed straight to our mess tent. Our Pakistani cook, Rastam, cooked up a stack of delicious chapatis. We ate with the gusto of men who had been on high-altitude rations for several days. Our evening radio contact with Reinmar and Peter confirmed that Ernst had arrived with his load. Weather permitting, they decided to ferry it to Camp II the next day. We were instructed to bring more supplies to Camp I.

  Snow was falling heavily when we woke on the seventeenth. With pleasure Andy and I rolled over and went back to sleep. By late morning, like a broom, a sudden wind swept away the clouds. About 11 A.M. we learned by radio that Peter, Reinmar, and Ernst were starting for Camp II with supplies. Since it was late, Andy and I decided to rest a day and carry double loads up the following morning. Anxious to spend my first night at 6,800 meters, if the weather did not confound my plan, I thought our rest would make it possible for us to climb directly to Camp II in one day.

  Toward evening, men and women emerged from their tents, escaping from another day of tedious confinement. We said our farewells at the Canadian-American camp. The porters for their expedition had arrived, and their equipment was being dismantled for transport down the glacier. The next morning, Phil Powers, the genial mountaineer from Wyoming, and his friends departed for civilization. Behind them they left a sad remembrance of their experience. A plaque engraved with the name of Dan Culver was fixed to the rocks in a place below Base Camp—the site of the memorial cairn for all climbers who die on the slopes of K2.

  Under a clear sky Andy and I got an early start from Base Camp. Alone on the route, our silent progress was suddenly interrupted by Rastam’s shouts. He came running after us to deliver my forgotten thermos. After the day’s rest, even with a double load of supplies, I moved easily in the knee-deep snow, breaking trail and pulling the ropes up to the surface. I imagined many climbers would follow us, happy not to be trapped in their tents. Due to the continuous storms, many teams who had arrived as early as May had only reached 6,800 meters. After ten days of work our team could expect to spend the night at that elevation.

  About eight-thirty I joined my German friends for breakfast at Camp I. After the previous day’s hard work, they weren’t moving very quickly. With the double load I had carried, I had no pangs of guilt about my contribution to our effort. I felt strong; my only problem was a cough caused by breathing the dry, thin air. Thanks to Rastam I had my preferred remedy—mint tea. About ten o’clock Peter, Reinmar, and Ernst were ready to go. Andy arrived; stomach problems had slowed him down. Carrying about fifteen kilograms of group equipment and five kilograms of my personal gear, I set off and was soon ahead of Reinmar and Ernst, catching and passing Peter below the yellow rocks. He looked stronger than his comrades and was feeling quite good at that elevation. I used a jumar on the fixed rope to climb up a steep section of rock and arrived on a snowy ridge.

  Camp II was located in an inconvenient place on the ridge completely exposed to the prevailing winds. Flapping flags, the shredded remains of many tents littered the area, their debris a testimony to the hurricane-force winds that ripped across this slope and the trouble those tents had caused their owners. I began to cut ice bricks from the snow as I cleared level platforms in the slope. Peter, Reinmar, and Ernst arrived later and immediately began to help me. Andy, not feeling well, had turned back to spend the night at Camp I. By radio he said that he would join us the following day. Peter and Ernst set up our three-man dome tent. Carefully, Reinmar and I secured my two-man North Face in the lee of an ice-block wall. The evening weather was beautiful and the air was still. Far to the south, the ridges of the mountains were painted with the splendid reds and purples of sunset. After making ourselves comfortable in our sleeping bags, we cooked a wonderful supper. That night I had no complaints about the delicacies we had hauled up the mountain.

  Though I slept soundly through the night, the next morning I felt the increase in altitude for the first time. I had no appetite. My teammates were none too joyful either. The multiple nights above 6,000 meters and the hard work were telling on them. That morning we discussed a plan for setting up the next camp. I suggested that we ascend carrying minimal equipment and supplies and spend a night at 7,300 meters for acclimatization at the new elevation. Peter and Reinmar were totally opposed to my idea. They decided we would transport heavy loads of gas, food, and equipment, which would be needed in the future, and that we would return to Camp II for that night. The next day we were supposed to carry another load up and overnight at the new elevation.

  I tried to reason with them, explaining why I thought it was important to spend one night without the stress of heavy work at the new elevation. Also, the ropes on the steep section ahead of us were the unstable remnants from old expeditions, and descending tired later in the day along this precipitous terrain without the benefit of a well-secured trail was an added risk. I lobbied for the night of acclimatization at 7,300 meters because I thought it was necessary for my German friends, more so than for Andy and me, who had spent the spring climbing high. I knew this safety precaution would improve our performance later on. Given the energy level that morning, I seriously doubted we would be in form to make another carry to Camp III the next day. My plan was dismissed out of hand. Peter and Reinmar pedantically insisted I return with them to Camp II after our carry. They had a confidence in their physical resilience and energy stores I could only admire.

  As we waited for Andy to arrive, we sorted the loads for our last two camps. Ernst felt unwell in the night; he was tired. After bringing up the load he had left below the yellow band the day before, he decided to descend to Camp I to spend the night. In my professional assessment, Ernst was adjusting fairly well by taking interim days of rest. Many times I had seen older mountaineers in the Soviet Union succeed on peaks higher than eight thousand meters by taking more time to acclimate.

  I left camp following Peter and Andy up the fixed rope. Reinmar came behind me. By his pace, I could tell he was fatigued. Reinmar, with his strong soul, looked fully ten years younger than his fifty years. Twenty- and thirty-year-old men would envy his physical condition. Though fluent in German, English, and French, he was not a man of many words. His inner strength and his rational mind impressed me. When climbing, he was disciplined, motivated, and always good-tempered. Whenever I found myself ahead breaking trail, Reinmar was close to me, ever ready to exchange leads, to help me, even if he was tired. Though sometimes we found it difficult to comprehend what the other was saying, mainly due to my poor command of English, Reinmar and I always reached a common understanding. I never heard any tone of reproof from him, even if he was not happy with me. If things were not going according to plan, he would simply spread his arms and say in a way that sounded like English, “Yeah, yeah.”

  We had interesting discussions about the
political problems that had beset our countries since the Second World War. Germany and Russia share a common history, and not much of it was good. Because of men like Reinmar, I learned it was possible for Russians and Germans to respect one another despite the dark experiences of our recent past. Reinmar’s determination had taken him to the top of many mountains. I watched him moving surely toward his goal, the summit of K2. He deserved to succeed. He had earned that victory. The summit was within his physical and mental grasp, but so many things in our expedition worked against him. We had lost valuable time in Islamabad and were haunted by bad weather, and there were personal details, which depend on fate and luck, the significances of which are magnified by the circumstances up high.

  At the beginning of the steep part of the route to Camp III, I went ahead of Peter and Andy. The weather was weird. Tiny snowflakes were blowing around, and occasional gusts of wind were strong enough to push a man with a heavy load off-balance. When the sun broke though, the wind calmed and our windproof Gore-Tex suits were instantly hot and stuffy. The rocks became less steep and I searched for the location of the third high-altitude camp. After a section of rocks, we came to an icy slope with a veneer of deep, dry snow. I sank up to my knees. The dry powder flowed like a river from my steps down the steep slopes. There was no traction between my crampons and the snow. It was so bad that, two hundred meters below, Reinmar, moving persistently, had trouble ascending, though I had just compressed the snow with my weight.

  Across a crest of ice that dropped away abruptly to rocks, I emerged onto a steep, snowy slope. The wind calmed down, the sun came out, and the snow stopped falling. I moved up, pulling out pieces of old fixed line from under a thick covering of snow. I came to a huge waterproof bag; it belonged to two Swedish climbers. Somewhere under the new snow was the cave Phil Powers had told me about. The Canadian-American team had built it for their Camp III. I did not stop to look for this landmark. Two hundred meters higher there was a flat place; an obvious route lay ahead of me through the new snowdrifts that had piled up on the bergschrund. I decided that establishing a camp on the flat area would require half the effort needed to dig out a platform on the windy slope where I was standing. It was 2 P.M. I plunged ahead, soon sinking up to my chest in powder. It was impossible to extricate the fixed rope. I worked with my hands and elbows in a swimming motion, shoveling the loose snow aside and ramming it into walls with my shoulders. Then I brought up my knee and searched for a spot that would support my next step up. Reinmar followed the trench I had created and caught up with me plowing through the snow. I explained my rationale for moving ahead. He agreed it was a good idea. Fifty meters away just behind the bergschrund, I could see wind-hardened névé, which would provide perfect traction and stable support for walking. Completely exhausted by this hellish work, we stopped for a drink of hot tea. I was so tired that I could no longer lift my backpack. Reinmar went ahead of me and worked for about fifteen minutes before exhaustion forced him to stop. Peter arrived at the level of the Swedish dry bag. I saw him try to move up in the trench we had made. Quickly, he gave up, deposited his load, and began his descent.