Thieves, Liars and Mountaineers: On the 8000 Metre Peak Circus in Pakistan's Karakoram Mountains (6 page)

We have a full day's rest at Base Camp today. I spend most of this morning lying in my tent reading. I'm concerned about the wound on my left ankle, caused by my boots rubbing. One layer of skin has been pulled off completely and the boot began rubbing on the second layer as I came down yesterday. I can't afford to have two layers of skin getting pulled off every time I wear the boots, so I dress the wound and hobble around in my boots on the moraine outside my tent trying to figure out the problem and make them more comfortable. The right boot was rubbing in Nepal last month, but now seems to be OK, but the left boot remains a problem. Of course, if I can't fix it I'll just have to climb through the pain and discomfort, but my ill-fitting boots remain my biggest concern to summit success.

Phil is going to let the Sherpas decide which day we go back up the mountain. Our next foray will take us up to Camp 2 to spend the night before returning to Base Camp to rest. We need the Sherpas to establish the camp for us, and it's important they're well rested before they go back up again. When he was told he couldn't fix the route to Camp 3, a bored Gombu, the sirdar and ultimate decision-maker for the Sherpa team, spent the afternoon digging a posh toilet in the snow at Camp 1. This morning I hear shouts and laughter outside my tent and peer out to see all five of them dragging a barrel of glacier water up the ice slope beside our camp. They do this three times to provide our kitchen crew with plenty of water for cooking, and seem to be enjoying themselves – so much for letting them get rested!

In the afternoon while I'm playing cards in the dining tent with Gorgan, Gordon and Michael, Phil comes in to say they've decided to take another rest day tomorrow, and we'll set off early again up the mountain on Sunday. Although he only arrived in Base Camp three days ago, Michael will be coming with us, which means he will have caught up with us and be on the same climbing schedule. Providing he is sufficiently acclimatised this won't be a problem – he's a good deal younger and fitter than most of us, after all.

Another day of patiently waiting down in Base Camp, and another day of fine weather. It surely can't last. We've received news that a weather front will arrive across the Karakoram on July 1 st . This will give us time to make another foray up the mountain, to Camp 2 this time, before returning to Base Camp to sit out any bad weather it may bring. This means a night start tonight. Given the last time, the majority favour a 3am start up the icefall, and this has been agreed.

I pass the time today reading a little bit, doing some washing, and playing cards in the dining tent with Ian, Michael, Arian and Gordon, interrupted by a little bit of Base Camp politics, when a small Canadian group arrives and tries pitching their tents on the moraine just below us. An argument kicks off which is witnessed by our cook Ashad.

“I give you f---ers five minutes to move your f------ tents,” a member of the international team they have tried to camp beside is reported as saying.

This is the same team, containing members from the UK, Canada, New Zealand, Sweden and Brazil, who complained that Gordon's tent was pitched too close to their water source. This team is intending to climb the less popular mountains G3 and G4, and the general feeling around Base Camp is that there may be an element of snobbery at play here. The team feels themselves separate from the rest of the teams here to climb the more commercial peaks of G1 and G2, who are all cooperating towards the same objective. It all seems very petty: after all, this is only a very narrow section of moraine on a glacier, and no one expedition team can claim ownership of any particular patch. The new arrivals come and ask Phil if they can camp beside us. They're only a small team with two clients, a leader and a couple of high altitude porters, and Phil is more than happy. After all, we're expecting a huge group of 20 Iranian climbers to arrive any day who need to find a space in Base Camp alongside the rest of us, and we would all far rather have this much smaller team camping next to us instead. Even so, the Canadian team still has to trudge up to the army camp beyond us to obtain permission from the Pakistan Army before they camp here.

Gasherbrums IV (7925m), III (7952m) and II (8035m)

On a sorrier note, his frozen penis combined with a spot of stomach trouble has meant that Ali the Iranian who trekked in with us has decided to go home after just 7 days at Base Camp, and having climbed no higher than Camp 1. We're all very sorry for him, though when the survival of ones frozen member is at stake, it is always well to remember that the mountain will still be here next year while the appendage may not. I'm sure Ali has made the right decision.

At 1.30am I hear snow pattering on the roof of my tent, but by 2am it's finished. This is good news; if the weather forecast is correct and there's a storm coming over on July 1 st , we can't afford another rest day at Base Camp if we're to make our foray up to Camp 2 and back down again before it hits us.

By 3am seven of us are on our way back up the icefall: myself, Ian, Phil, Michael, Arian, Gordon and Tarke. In fact, it's incredibly mild, and this causes problems in the early part of the climb. Streams of meltwater are flowing off the glacier and Phil ends up freezing his leg by putting his foot through thin ice into one of them. Crevasses are widening and snow bridges melting. I'm glad Phil is leading as there would be a high chance of ending up in a crevasse. We start unroped because the route is extremely fiddly up and down pressure ridges and around seracs. Phil nearly goes through a snow bridge and Ian and I have to hold onto him while he modifies the route around a huge crevasse. Later, when we are roped, I have to do the same after I try to leap a crevasse only to find snow on the lip I'm jumping onto give way beneath me. Fortunately I'm able to recover, and then have to prod away with my ice axe to find an alternative safe route around the crevasse. On another occasion my right leg disappears a metre into deep snow, and in yanking it out again I pull my crampon off my boot. Fortunately Michael, who is walking behind me, spots it straight away and I'm able to stop and put it back on again before walking any distance cramponless.

All this is done during darkness under the light of our head torches. Phil is rushing us as it's more dangerous than normal, and the rapid pace coupled with no stops for a breather mean that, again, I'm exhausted before the climb has really got going. I'm thinking to myself if I have to maintain this pace on summit day, it's going to kill me.

Once through the more intensive crevasse section at the bottom of the icefall, the remainder of the climb is straightforward, and we reach Camp 1 at 8am. This time it has taken us just 5 hours. For some reason most of my crazy companions want to continue to Camp 2, but I'm more than happy to spend a night here and continue on to Camp 2 tomorrow. Michael also stays at Camp 1 because he's spent less time acclimatising than the rest of us, and Tarke also stays to keep us company. It's clear to me that I'm the least fit member of the team, though I feel I'm quite capable of climbing this mountain if I'm able to take things a little easier and complete the climb at a pace that's comfortable for me. The question is whether I'm going to be allowed to do that.

The others set off for Camp 2 at 9 o'clock. Shortly afterwards it begins to snow, but at 11.30 a break in the cloud allows us to see seven tiny figures on the snow face above us on a feature called the Banana Ridge. It looks horrendously steep from where we are, looking at the route head on.

We give the matter no further thought and fall asleep for a couple of hours. When I wake up the sun is pounding on the tent and it's sweltering inside, so I go out to have another look out across the Gasherbrum Cwm, one of the most amazing mountain settings anywhere, surrounded by six Gasherbrum Peaks, every one of them spectacular. The afternoon is restful as we listen to avalanches blasting the slopes of the mountains all around us.

In the evening we cook one of those disgusting Backpacker meals which involve adding water to a packet of freeze-dried ingredients and letting it simmer. This time we have some sort of Thai noodle soup. I pour a fairly watery soup into Michael's mug, but when I come to pour mine, a fist-sized chunk of glued-together noodle lands in my mug. There's clearly a technique to cooking these simple meals I've not grasped yet. Neither of us find the food at all tasty, and we end up burying the remainder we're quite unable to finish under snow in the porch of our tent, and agree not to tell Arian the environmental warrior.

Undeterred by last night's culinary disaster, Michael and I wake up at 5am to boil water for breakfast. We decide to have a Backpacker breakfast of granola with bananas and milk. Same method as yesterday – pour hot water into the mix and stir it up – but this time it's actually quite nice, though I suppose as this one's only muesli with dried banana and powder milk, there's less either we or the manufacturers can do wrong.

At 7am Michael, Tarke and I set off for Camp 2 and the fabled Banana Ridge. It depressed me looking at this feature yesterday afternoon as we watched stationary figures hardly moving on what looked like an almost sheer snow face, but in the end it doesn't turn out to be too bad. A short walk across flat snow brings us to the point where Gasherbrum II rises abruptly above the Gasherbrum Cwm. The climb begins with a gentle zigzag up steep snow, and for once I don't find myself trying to keep up with a crazy pace as Tarke leads with a gentle, comfortable plod, stopping frequently for a few seconds to enable us to take a few deep breaths.

When we get to the start of the fixed ropes, we don't consider the first section steep enough to warrant jumars, and we clip in with our safety carabiners and continue plodding up slowly. About halfway up, the trail passes to the right underneath an ice cliff and then to the left back over it. The sky is completely clear and we have great views of all the mountains surrounding the Cwm, most notably Gasherbrum I and Gasherbrum II above us. Just before reaching the Banana Ridge we meet Phil, Gordon, Arian and Ian coming back down.

“Man, they were f---ed yesterday afternoon,” Phil says, arriving ahead of the others. “Gordon f---ed; Ian f---ed.”

“Does that mean we can switch to a more sensible schedule for our summit push?” I ask. “Base Camp to Camp 1, 1 to 2, 2 to 3, and then the summit.”

Phil nods. “It's looking like it, dude. Just ‘cos I decided to go all the way up to Camp 2 myself, it didn't mean the others had to follow me.”

This is a relief. Back in Base Camp a couple of days ago someone asked whether we'd be skipping Camp 1 on our summit push, like the others did yesterday, and Phil had said if you can't go straight from Base Camp to Camp 2 in a single push then you shouldn't be on the mountain. Notwithstanding his far greater experience than mine, I can't help thinking an important consideration is lost here. The main purpose of the days prior to summit day is to ensure you're rested enough and acclimatised enough to ensure that you're in the best possible shape for summit day. By climbing 1350m from Base Camp to Camp 2, followed by 800m from Camp 2 to Camp 3, it doesn't seem to me you're going to be in the best shape to launch a 900m summit day above 7000m straight afterwards.

I know I'm capable of climbing this mountain, but the biggest risk for me is killing myself by being forced into keeping the punishing pace and schedule the others seem to be setting themselves. I wouldn't like to say “I told you so” or be pleased that my companions arrived at Camp 2 yesterday “f---ed”, but for me their push straight from Base Camp to Camp 2 was completely pointless. Michael and I have had two comfortable days' climbing with plenty of rest, and have had an extra night at 5900m to help us acclimatise. The weather has been an added bonus: instead of climbing in a snow storm like the others did yesterday, we've had perfect skies and have stopped frequently for photos.

At the bottom of the Banana Ridge

The Banana Ridge curves gradually to the left and climbs 200 metres to the campsite behind a prominent rock buttress which can be seen from Camp 1. There is a short drop into camp, and we arrive there shortly after 10.30, after just 3½ hours' climbing. I don't need to remind myself that Ian, normally much quicker than me, took 5 hours and arrived “f---ed”, by I do anyway. The rock buttress hides most of the Gasherbrum Cwm from us, but Gasherbrum I is still visible across the Gasherbrum La, and G2's summit is now much closer above us.

We're at 6420m, and this morning's ascent has made me feel a great deal better about the whole climb. We've surmounted the steepest feature on the mountain with no real difficulty, Tarke's pace today has been just right, and I've had the first intimation from Phil that my slower pace and desire for shorter days can be accommodated – it may even be recommended to some of the others. I also seem to be acclimatising well and am sleeping well at high camps – so far, though for tonight we will have to see.

Michael seems to be a bit under the weather this afternoon, however. He enjoyed the climb and got plenty of liquid down him when he arrived in camp, but since lying down to rest he seems to have picked up a severe headache, probably as a result of the more compressed acclimatisation schedule he's been running on. We go back to Base Camp tomorrow morning, so he will have plenty of time to recover. I boil up coffee, soup and chicken casserole for dinner, but the soup is too much for Michael, and he has to crawl outside the tent to throw it back up again. During our 6pm radio call to Base Camp Phil recommends a Diamox to help him recover.