by Mark Horrell
I believe him. As he stands at the head of the table in his cowboy hat, with his long straight ponytail hanging down his back, there is a smile on his face which extends behind his eyes and is entirely genuine, hiding nothing – no regrets or wistfulness.
Veikka Gustafsson and Serap Jangbu Sherpa
Gorgan's emotions are harder to fathom. “See you in London, when I come over to shag all your English women,” he says with a grin as he shakes my hand. I think he's just glad to be getting out of here.
Today is the second day of three days of storms, according to the last weather forecast we received. It's certainly the worst day I can remember us experiencing at Base Camp. A cold wet snow hammers down all day, and damp clouds hang across the Abruzzi and South Gasherbrum Glaciers, obscuring all mountains so that it looks like our little patch of moraine is afloat on an endless sea of ice. Not a hint of sun penetrates through to warm our tents, and in the afternoon I huddle inside mine wearing down boots, down jacket and two layers of trousers, with all tent flaps firmly zipped up, listening to a gusty wind hammer against the sides of the tent. At one point a solitary wasp finds its way inside and buzzes around my ears. With not a single blade of grass for miles around, I wonder what on earth the stupid insect is doing up here.
Despite the atrocious weather, our two enthusiastic youngsters, Arian and Michael, decide to spend the afternoon ice climbing on the glacier in the expectation that it will be good practice for when we come to climb G1. I very much hope severe ice climbing requiring two technical ice axes will not be necessary on summit day, where we will not be using fixed ropes. If so, I will be turning round and heading back down again – I've no wish to die on this mountain. As I sit and listen to the snow patter on my tent, a more realistic concern is whether we will ever get above Camp 2 on either mountain. Although we were intending to put up fixed ropes between Camps 3 and 4 and on the summit ridge of Gasherbrum II, supposedly an easier mountain, I seem to be the only person concerned that none of the route will be fixed above Camp 3 on G1. Either my companions are somewhat complacent or they're very talented ice climbers.
At dinner time I receive slightly better news. Phil has been over to see the newly arrived Korean team of Miss Oh Eun-Sun, who is hoping to make G1 her thirteenth 8000m peak after coming fresh off a successful summit of Nanga Parbat, her twelfth. Unlike anyone else on Gasherbrum this year, apart from ourselves, she has a team of Sherpas with her. She believes there will be a summit window between 31 st July and 4 th August, and her Sherpas will be using oxygen to help them fix 400 metres of rope on summit day. Phil offered for our Sherpas to help with fixing and breaking trail, and we understand this has been accepted. I try not to get too excited about this, though. News changes around here like a monkey swinging from tree to tree and never settling in one place. I'm certain circumstances will change again before we get anywhere near the summit. Que sera, sera .
52. Ice climbing beneath Baltoro Kangri
Thursday 30 July, 2009 – Gasherbrum Base Camp, Pakistan
After breakfast, while Gordon wisely decides to retire to his tent for a snooze, I make the mistake of taking Arian and Michael up on their invitation to go ice climbing. Thinking they intend to simply go to a section of glacier behind our camp, I end up following them for half an hour as we walk all the way across the Abruzzi Glacier to the foot of Baltoro Kangri, leaping numerous icy streams en route. Here Arian selects a 20 metre section of mostly vertical ice, sets up snow anchors at the top, and we abseil down to find a belay station at its base.
“I might struggle with this one,” I say to him. “but I'll give it a go.”
I then watch the pair of them surmount it without too much difficulty before struggling up myself. By the time I reach the top I'm panting for breath and coughing like a smoker, and definitely not feeling like another go. Hard core ice climbing the day before our likely summit push isn't what I had in mind.
“I'll leave you youngsters to it,” I say to Arian. “I'm off back – I've got a mountain to climb tomorrow.”
He's amazed, but while he's definitely a climber, I'm just a walker who regards climbing as a necessary skill to get up certain mountains. While a climber enjoys the sheer thrill of technical difficulty, a walker is just there to enjoy the scenery and freedom of being outdoors, and is glad to get the difficult sections over with. Happy that I've refreshed my rope skills and crampon technique, I wander back to camp and have stopped coughing by the time I get back.
“Those guys are a bit hardcore for me,” I say to Phil as I pass his tent. “They had me climbing 20 metre vertical ice walls!”
“Dude, you don't need that,” he replies. “That's why we always take the simplest route up these mountains.”
Although we can see storms in the icefall and over Gasherbrum I today, the weather holds back at Base Camp. We're no longer receiving forecasts from our usual source, so unless the weather is atrocious when we wake up tomorrow morning, we're just going to head up the mountain anyway for a last gasp effort, and we'll see what happens.
I'm finding that after nearly two months here now, I'm losing my motivation for the whole thing, and have a very bad feeling about our latest summit dash, for a number of reasons:
Of the hundreds of climbers with permits for the five Karakoram 8000ers this year, there have been precisely 13 summits and 8 deaths;
High jetstream winds and heavy snow have been sweeping the Gasherbrums ever since we've been here. There's no indication from the weather over the last few days, or the forecast for the next week, that this is about to change;
One man with eleven 8000 metre peaks to his name, Serap Jangbu, has already given G1 up as a bad job this year, and looked very happy to be going home in one piece;
It looks like everyone left in Base Camp is intending to go up the Japanese Couloir on the same day – 7 Koreans, 8 Spanish, 7 Czechs, and 9 Altitude Junkies – using last year's ropes, kicking stones and ice down as they go, and with no space for anyone to turn around if conditions aren't right;
There are no fixed ropes above Camp 3, and I'm conscious that at least two of the 8 deaths this year have been as a result of people falling in difficult sections with no fixed rope.
Still – chin up. Got to get on with it and give it a go.
53. Total exhaustion on the first day of our summit push
Friday 31 July, 2009 – Camp 2, Gasherbrum I, Pakistan
Perhaps the issue of whether to go for the summit of Gasherbrum I has been resolved, but not in a way I'd have liked. We set off from Base Camp at 6am through the icefall for our sixth and final time, having received reports of its being in bad condition from those who have been through more recently. We've never had any major difficulties with crevasses and melting snow bridges this early in the morning, and because it's light by this time there's no problem seeing them and just jumping over, as long as we keep to the trail. Even so, in the early part of the icefall, I'm walking through it thinking I've had enough of this bloody mountain and just want to get home in one piece. It's not the ideal mindset to be carrying on the eve of a summit push.
Towards the top, while the weather is still fine, Phil suggests we wait and rest at Camp 1 for an hour or so before pushing on to Camp 2 before the snow arrives, which is predicted for later in the day.
I must be looking distinctly unimpressed because Phil, knowing my preference for short days prior to summit day, says to me: “You're looking at me like I'm a c—t!”
We arrive at Camp 1, and all the Czechs and Spaniards are waiting around, having been up here a day or two already. The thought occurs to us that they're waiting around for us and our Sherpas to go ahead and break trail to Camp 2 – it wouldn't be the first time this has happened. We also discover the expedition meals which the Sherpas brought down from Camp 2 are missing. While Polish Jack remains the main suspect, there have been several lone climbers making tilts above Camp 2 on Gasherbrum II through the various storms. When Polish Jack returned from his two week stint above Ba
se Camp, his team's Pakistani liaison officer, inspired by Arian's example, asked him to empty his rubbish out. It was no surprise to him to discover that he hadn't brought any down with him. It helps when you can travel light by using other people's tents, gas and food, and dumping any leftovers in a crevasse.
The Koreans, who have been ascending the icefall alongside us, stop and begin pitching their tents at Camp 1, but Phil wants us to push ahead this afternoon, and head up the Japanese Couloir tomorrow, when we will have it to ourselves if the other teams choose to stay here another night. There's logic in this, but I know I won't be up to it physically.
“You can go up the couloir tomorrow,” I reply, “but I won't be going with you.”
I'm all for staying a night here at Camp 1 and going up to Camp 2 tomorrow, as usual. This is the third time Phil has suggested pushing two camps in a single day, and on both previous occasions they ended up arriving at Camp 2 knackered, while Michael and I had no regrets about arriving the following day in pretty good physical shape. This time Michael and Arian seem to be wavering, but Phil is very insistent that everyone should push on.
“You can stay here if you like,” he says, “but we know there's heavy snow on the way. If you want to break trail again tomorrow through all the fresh snow, that's up to you.”
In the end I feel I have to go with them, as I need someone to rope up with through all the crevasses, and don't want to end up stranded at Camp 1. By the time we set off at midday, carrying all the extra equipment we need for the higher camps, the snow has already started and visibility is very poor. Although he's brought four Sherpas with him, Phil ends up breaking trail himself because they're all more heavily laden than the rest of us.
As we make our way across the thick flat snow of the Cwm to the foot of the climb up to the Gasherbrum La, Phil can barely see the distance to the next bamboo wand in front of him. All the time I'm wondering why I didn't stay in camp, but whenever Phil stops and asks if anyone wants to go back, nobody volunteers but me, so we continue onward. Then, all of a sudden, after an hour of walking the sun comes out and everything clears. We're still on the plateau, but now we can see the route to Camp 2 rising ahead of us. A narrow gap between Gasherbrum II and Gasherbrum I leads up through a broken glacier on a series of snow ramps between crevasses. The col that we're heading to doesn't look that high from here, and we've been climbing imperceptibly ever since we started crossing the Cwm from Camp 1. I look at my altimeter – we're at 6000m, and we believe Camp 2 to be at 6250m.
We stop for ten minutes in the sun and look back across the Cwm to Camp 1. The whole area is riddled with crevasses, and to our right we can now see the whole of the Banana Ridge on G2 in profile – from this angle it looks much steeper than the 45 to 50 degrees I believed it to be when climbing it, and now I can see it's closer to 60 degrees. To our left avalanches rumble down the slopes of G1 and land not far from where we sit. The setting is idyllic, but deceptively hostile.
The sun becomes our enemy, beating down on us as we continue up the slope, turning the hard snow into slush as Phil continues to lead. An hour or two later he stops again on a platform broad enough to seat all nine of us comfortably. We've climbed about 100 metres and he thinks we're about halfway, an estimate that turns out to be wildly optimistic. I'm already tired and looking forward to getting the other 100 metres of slow plod that I believe there to be out of the way.
“Martha from the Spanish team says we've got to do an ice climb before we reach Camp 2,” says Arian.
I think he's trying to wind us up. “Oh, f--- off!” I gasp.
“No, she must mean after Camp 2 on the couloir, not before it,” says Phil. Everyone nods in agreement and we move on.
Climbing up to Camp 2 on Gasherbrum I
A little above this we have to put on crampons to surmount a steep section of ice. Above this is a crevasse above the trail which we have to leap upwards over, a tiring manoeuvre carrying big packs in the hot sun. Then a long angled traverse climbs at 45 degrees through soft snow. All the while I'm becoming more and more exhausted, but Temba at the front of our rope doesn't slacken the pace. I feel tugs in front of me as he tries to propel us forwards, and sometimes a simultaneous tug from behind as Gordon stops for a breather. It's hard work, and eventually I hear Gordon put his pack down while we're still on the steep traverse, having been hoping for a long time to reach the brow and see Camp 2 ahead of us. We're certainly high enough by my altimeter, but there's still no sign of the camp, and there's been no let up in the relentless climb. By now we've slowed to a crawl, and I have pins and needles right down my forearms to my finger tips every time I put my pack down. Gordon looks like he's going nowhere for a while, and Temba suggests to us that he, Pasang and Arian, who are in better shape, go on ahead to pitch the tents and boil water for a brew, while Gombu, Gordon and I continue more slowly behind. I still keep believing that it can't be much further to camp now, and Gombu's slower pace is much more comfortable than Temba's – he takes a few short steps then stops for a breath before moving again, and he keeps an eye on both of us to make sure he stops when we stop.
At some point during the ascent, I mentally say to myself that there's about another hour to go before we reach camp, but then when we finally crest the rise that has been above us for over an hour, we see another long slope with an ice wall at the end of it, some distance ahead of us, which the others are trying to fix a rope up, and we realise there are still many hours of ascent ahead of us at the pace we are going. Exhausted and disheartened, we stop to consider our options, and get on the radio to Phil.
“Gordon and I are f---ed,” I tell him. “We're thinking of camping out here and coming up tomorrow. The we'll decide tomorrow whether we're still going for the summit or going back down. Unless somebody can come back here and fetch our packs for us … The main thing is, whatever we do, we don't want to jeopardise Gombu's summit chances.”
“Dude, we're going to have a complete rest day tomorrow,” Phil replies. “We're all nearly as f---ed as you are. If we can all be together at Camp 2 it would be best. But if you are going to camp, I'd prefer it if you didn't camp where you are. I think you might get some debris if any of the seracs on this ice wall collapse.”
As I look up at the face the others are struggling to climb, my morale ebbs ever lower, but it's a long way back to Camp 1 and I'm running out of water. Gombu gets out his stove and we stop and rest while he melts some snow to replenish our water bottles. He also gives me a Snickers bar which has melted to liquid in the hot sun, but I've not eaten since breakfast and desperately need the energy, so gratefully suck chocolate and nuts off the wrapper. When we've finished filling our bottles, the others are still struggling to fix a rope on the ice wall.
“I can tell you now, and not going to get up that thing,” I tell Gordon and Gombu, “not in my current state, carrying a big pack.”
“If you dump your pack, no one's going to come back for it tonight,” says Gordon. “They're all knackered, too. We could cache most of our kit and just take the stuff we need for sleeping.”
“Mark, if you want to camp here, then we camp here. I have tent. It's safe,” says Gombu.
In the end we decide to walk a little bit higher up the slope to the serac wall, as Gordon says he thinks it will make a safer camp, but when we get there it clearly won't. With seracs behind and cracks in the snow in front indicating hidden crevasses, we'd be treading in a minefield outside our tent. We decide to push on. The sun goes in just as we're arriving at the foot of the ice wall, and it suddenly becomes much colder. I use a somewhat unorthodox technique to surmount the wall. I'm so tired that I can't contemplate doing anything too technical as I'm sure I'd fall, so I simply haul myself up the vertical section with my arms, using my jumar in my right hand and pulling on the rope with my left. At the top I collapse and wait for the others, Gombu immediately behind me and Gordon a little while later. From there it's a ten minute walk across a wide plateau into camp, and I arrive with cold fing
ers at 8pm after a 14 hour day. It's without a doubt the most exhausted I've ever been on a mountain. I've had some tough summit days, but nothing to compare to this, and we still have two tough days of climbing to go if we're to reach the summit. I look at my altimeter and read 6450m – 200 metres more of ascent than we'd been expecting. It means we've climbed a total of around 1400 vertical metres today, the majority of it laden down in the heat of the afternoon sun.
The others arrived an hour before us. “Well done. Really well done,” says Arian as I approach the camp.
But I'm certainly not in triumphant mood. “Not well done at all. It's stupid to get so exhausted two days before summit day.”
I've already been toying with the idea of not making another summit attempt for a day or two now, and at this very moment as I arrive at Camp 2 I'm feeling that the decision has been made for me. There are two golden rules of performing at high altitude: don't over-exert and keep hydrated. I've broken both of these today, quite unavoidably and in spectacular fashion. I unpack all my things and, armed with a mug of hot tang Michael brewed up while he was waiting for us to arrive, collapse straight into my sleeping bag, very demoralised.
54. Studying the Japanese Couloir; summit decisions
Saturday 1 August, 2009 – Camp 2, Gasherbrum I, Pakistan
As if to prove a point, while I lie in my tent this morning recovering from yesterday's exertions, I hear first the Korean team, and then the Spanish and Czech teams arrive from Camp 1. A combination of the trail broken by ourselves, walking in shade on still frozen snow, and above all, a night of rest and only 500 metres of ascent, has made the climb from Camp 1 a doddle for them compared with the ordeal we went through. In addition, they were able to use the fixed rope up the ice wall that the others struggled to put in place last night. After attempts by several members of the team, Arian was eventually the one who managed to free climb the wall and put an anchor in place. It's only just 9 o'clock by the time they've all got to Camp 2. It's taken them barely three hours, compared to the 8 hours it took me and Gordon, and they've arrived fresh while we now have to spend a day recovering.
