Thieves, Liars and Mountaineers: On the 8000 Metre Peak Circus in Pakistan's Karakoram Mountains (17 page)

It doesn't surprise me this morning when I wake up to the sound of Michael preparing to leave. It's very cold, but other than this the sky is clear and the weather seems perfect, with no sign yet of the strong wind which has been forecast. Michael seems cautious and a little uncertain about whether they are making a wise decision to continue with their summit push, but Arian is keen and encourages him. Nobody else seems to be listening to the forecast. The Spanish and Czechs are preparing to ascend, and the Koreans are already at Camp 3. At 8.30 Arian and Michael head towards the Japanese Couloir with Temba and Pasang. These latter two are younger than Gombu and Tarke, who are retreating with me, Phil and Gordon, and I don't know how they feel about the ascent. For them this is a job: if two clients want to make a summit attempt then somebody has to go with them, but Temba has kids, and Pasang was present on K2 last year on the night that eleven people died on the mountain. He lived through it as part of a Korean expedition. A penny for his thoughts.

At 9 o'clock all is quiet again at Camp 2 when Gordon, Phil, Gombu, Tarke and I leave in burning sun. Before we depart Gombu, intrigued, comes over and lifts up my rucksack, which is bulging with equipment.

“Too heavy,” he says. “Nearly as heavy as mine.”

This is not a good sign. Sherpas are very strong and accustomed to carrying big loads. As well as their personal equipment they carry all our tents, pots, stoves and snow shovels. If my pack is nearly as heavy as Gombu's then I'm definitely carrying too much gear.

Figures make their way along the trail to the Japanese Couloir on Gasherbrum I

Today is going to be a long old slog, but we make good time down to Camp 1. At the bottom of the ice wall we see that a large section next to the fixed rope has collapsed, spilling gigantic blocks of ice over the area beneath. If anyone had been passing at the time, they would certainly have been crushed to death, and although Gordon, Gombu and I eventually rejected the idea of camping beneath the serac wall when we were exhausted on the ascent two days ago for this very reason, it's a salutary reminder to us.

By 11 o'clock we've reached the bottom of the descent from the Gasherbrum La, and are crossing the Gasherbrum Cwm to Camp 1. I'm starting to feel the load on my shoulders, but there are still many hours to go if we are to return to Base Camp today. Phil stops and looks up as he sees two figures high up on Gasherbrum II, halfway along the traverse beneath the summit pyramid. We know that two Iranians and a Spaniard were at Camp 3 on G2 overnight, intending to make a summit attempt today.

“They're too late,” Phil remarks. “They're still hours away from the summit.”

We watch their progress throughout the day as we descend to Base Camp. Four hours later, at 3 o'clock, we are to look back from the icefall just before G2 disappears from view, and see them just reaching the end of the traverse. By then the clouds are well and truly hammering the summit pyramid. At their rate of progress, they would still have another 3 or 4 hours of ascent up the summit ridge through this storm, and then have to descend again to Camp 3. If they continue onwards then it would be well past nightfall before they're safe again, and we hope they make the sensible decision to turn around.

Meanwhile we reach Camp 1 in burning sun and take a rest, collecting as much equipment as we can from Camp 1 to take down with us. Gombu and Tarke pack away some of the tents, leaving two erect for Michael, Arian, Temba and Pasang. Unlike our tents at Base Camp, which rise up on icy pedestals as time passes, these ones appear to have sunk ever further into the glacier. Great pits four or five feet deep have been left behind when the tents have been packed away, and since we have only used them for 6 or 7 nights while we've been on the mountain, I can only assume this effect has been caused by the amount of fresh snowfall accumulating around the tents. There are two large bags of food in my and Michael's tent, and I want to take as much of it as I can down to Base Camp, as I know he will be very tired when he descends after his summit attempt, but my pack is now overloaded, with equipment dangling from its straps, and I have to leave quite a lot of it behind. It's circumstances like these which have been causing some teams to dump their uneaten food in crevasses, while others have adopted what they believe to be the more environmentally-friendly action of donating their uneaten food to other teams still on the mountain. But this is just a cop out – some teams have been leaving as many as 20 kilos of food behind for others to dispose of for them. This a full one-person load, and somebody has to carry it down eventually. I satisfy myself that this is one of the reasons Altitude Junkies have Sherpas on our team. While I may be taking the lazy option myself, Gombu and Tarke will return up the icefall for one last time if we still have equipment which needs to be carried back down.

I know that it's going to be an ordeal getting through the icefall again, tired as I am with my heavy pack, and knowing that the afternoon sun will be opening up crevasses, melting snow bridges and turning the crisp snow into slush. It usually takes us three hours to descend from Camp 1, but that's not going to be the case this time.

“See you in six hours,” I shout to Gombu and Tarke as they set off ahead of us. Everybody laughs, but I'm not joking.

Still, unlike our ascent of two days ago, when Gordon and I ran out of energy, I'm prepared for the ordeal ahead of us, and I also know that every step is a step closer to the end of it all, that at the bottom of the icefall is Base Camp, that after six return trips through it in the last two months, it's likely that I'll never set foot in it ever again. The Gasherbrum Cwm is one of the most beautiful, magical places I've ever set eyes upon, and at midday I leave it for the very last time.

We make slow progress, and every half hour or so we stop to take the packs off our shoulders and sit down in the snow. I'm surprised to see that Phil, at the front of our rope, doesn't seem to be falling into as many crevasses as I'm expecting him to, but eventually I realise that he's falling into plenty, but managing to hold his tongue and avoid spitting out the torrent of expletives that usually explode from his mouth in these circumstances. Towards the bottom of the icefall some of the crevasses have widened considerably. I chuckle when Gordon, in front of me, has to make a big song and dance about crossing them with his little legs, taking a big running leap and hurling himself across. Invariably he looks back to make sure I get over safely, only to see me casually step across as though they weren't there.

Inch by inch, minute by minute, we eat up the distance, and for the last two hours we have the encouragement of seeing the tents of Base Camp on the moraine below us, spurring us onwards, and at 5.30 the ordeal is over as I stagger over to my tent and ease the pack off my shoulders. It feels great.

“I tell you, I don't envy Arian and Michael up at Camp 3 right now,” says Gordon. Gombu and Tarke are beaming. None of us have any regrets about our decision to retreat.

At 7 o'clock the cook from the Jasmine Tours group is in our dining tent telling Phil that the Spaniard and the Iranian are safely back at Camp 3 on G2 having summited earlier this afternoon. They evidently aren't aware that we've been watching them for most of the day.

“Bulls—t!” I say when Phil tells me. “There are so many liars on this mountain.”

Had they known what we'd seen, that they must have been transformed from slow coaches to supermen in the teeth of the jetstream, then they would know how ridiculous their claim must sound to us. And when they get home, who cares that they say they've climbed a mountain nobody else has heard of, anyway? What's the point in lying about it when the only person who cares is yourself?

Just before dinner Phil has a radio call with Arian. They are safely up the Japanese Couloir and at Camp 3 on G1 having not been avalanched, and intending to leave for the summit at 1am, but the Korean Miss Oh has asked if Pasang or Temba can help her Sherpas to fix ropes on the ascent. Phil refuses because he wants both Arian and Michael to have a Sherpa each to help them. Also, the Korean Sherpas will be using oxygen to reduce the chances of frostbite in the predicted high winds, while our team won't. We both go to sleep worrying about what may happen tomorrow, Phil because he's never yet had a death on any of his expeditions, and me as I imagine myself returning to England with all Michael's kit, and having to explain to his family what has happened. I keep my fingers crossed that his level-headedness acts as a counterbalance to Arian's more impetuous nature.

Relief comes almost immediately this morning. Phil has a radio call with Arian at 7am and discovers they are already back at Camp 3, having set off for the summit at 1.30am and walked for 2½ hours, reaching 7300m before turning back because of the cold, the wind, and some minor breathing difficulties which Arian was experiencing. We understand from them that some of the Czech and Spanish climbers also turned around. Although it's a disappointment for them, it's good that they're safe.

We have a lazy day at Base Camp today. Phil's tent platform has now grown so large that it looks like a mushroom, and he needs to stand on a chair in order to climb into it. Gordon and I help him move it, and then give a hand with coiling ropes in preparation for our departure from Base Camp.

We learn that the Bulgarian did not summit Gasherbrum II after all, admitting that he got to within 50 metres before turning back. At least he's honest. Apparently the two Iranian climbers are still claiming they did, and now there are rumours that Ueli Steck's solo ascent on July 9 th is also being questioned on some websites because he is yet to produce a summit photo, though Phil is convinced that he did. We're now looking at the possibility that no one summited G2 this year. Later in the afternoon we learn that the Korean Miss Oh and her two Sherpas reached the summit of Gasherbrum I with oxygen at 1.15pm this afternoon, but I don't know what to believe any more.

By the evening Michael, Arian, Temba and Pasang are back at Camp 1 and staying there tonight. We organise our porters for the trek out, who need to know several days in advance to set out from Askole. Most people want to take the easy way back on the same route that we came in on, but Michael and I are insistent that we would like to trek back over the Gondokoro La to Hushe, despite everyone trying to put us off. Snow is forecast for Saturday, when we're scheduled to go over, so it may end up being another ordeal, but we're determined to give it a go if we can.

Michael and Arian walk into camp with Temba and Pasang at 11am this morning. Unlike ourselves arriving in the heat of the afternoon, they look in remarkably good shape and took only four hours down from Camp 1 in the cool of the morning.

“It was howling at Camp 3,” says Michael, “but as soon as we dropped back into the couloir, it was sheltered. Then you had to descend the fixed ropes, each time praying when you got to a new one, it wouldn't be too tight to abseil down. We were only able to abseil two thirds of it. The rest we had to down-climb. I was glad when we got to the bottom.”

“Luckily it was only me, Michael, Pasang and Temba descending at the time, so we didn't get too much rock fall from other climbers,” says Arian.

“Although Arian was going first, so I kept kicking bits of ice down onto him,” adds Michael.

“A similar thing happened to him on the Banana Ridge,” I say. “There was some idiot following him who kept falling on top of him.” I don't need to clarify that I was the idiot.

“The fixed ropes weren't too bad, though,” says Arian, smiling. “There were only a couple of sections that looked old. Otherwise it looked like the ropes had been fixed this year, not last year like Gorgan said.”

“In fact, you usually had about five fixed ropes to choose from,” says Michael. “None of them have been taken down from previous years.”

Neither of them seem too disappointed that they were forced to turn around, even later in the day when further tall summit stories filter in. We're now hearing the two Iranians are not claiming to have summited Gasherbrum II two days ago when we watched them on the traverse, but a Spanish climber is. The implication is that he was wearing a white down suit on the traverse, but changed into a rock-coloured one when he reached the summit ridge. Shortly afterwards, when he climbed into the teeth of the storm which we saw spewing off the summit pyramid, we wouldn't have been able to see him through the clouds. This would explain why we only saw two figures going in either direction on the traverse all day. His camouflage suit will no doubt be available in outdoor shops worldwide from the autumn, for those climbers who would like to climb 8000 metre peaks but don't want the whole world to know about it. Then we hear that yesterday the 72 year old leader of the Spanish team went on to summit Gasherbrum I several hours after Arian, Michael, and several younger members of the team turned around. Presumably he flew there.

In fairness, many of these tall summit stories which spread like wildfire around camp, don't originate from the claimant themselves, and are simply hearsay, gossip and unconfirmed assumptions propagated as truth by base camp rumour-mongers. More than once now have summit claims been quashed at a later date by the very people they've been attributed to. It remains to be seen whether the story of the 72 year old Spanish man who made an oxygenless ascent of G1 in 40 to 50 kmh winds on the day that strong, determined 20-somethings turned around, sticks.