Call Of The Black Pyramid

In the eyes of their intrepid wooers who repeatedly, and obsessively, answer their irresistible call, often perishing for their amour fou, mountains have different faces. Once the great alpine peaks like Matterhorn and Eiger—once thought to be the abode of dragons—had been conquered in the 1850s and ’60s by pioneering mountaineers, the next generations exerted themselves on climbing them from every possible rocky route, fiercely competing for the difficult ones. The same pattern obtained after the great Himalayan peaks swam into the ken of climbers from the early 20th century. Once Annapurna was climbed in 1950, the others fol­­lowed soon: Everest and Nanga Parbat in ’53, K2 in ’54, and Kanchenjunga in ’55.  The next decades were spent in mastering every crag on every ‘face’ that lay across the paths of the peaks.

Yet, one peak stands apart in icy haughtiness for being especially dangerous: the Karakoram’s mighty K2, its history scarred by a deadly statistic—one person dies on it for every four who reaches the summit. The greatest mountaineer of our time, Reinhold Messner, calls it the “mountain of mountains”. Yet, most ridges of even the fearsome K2 have been marked by spiked climbing boots. Unless it’s a valued notch on the icepick of a mountaineer, what new is left to prove on the “savage mountain”?

“It’s cold, cold, cold and windy,” says American climber and chronicler Alan Arnette, describing the difficulties of scaling Mount K2, or Godwin Austin, the world’s second-highest peak, in winter. Some call it ‘the final problem of the Himalayas’, some ‘the last great mountaineering prize’. Some of the greatest of mountaineers have tried it since 1987; none has succeeded. Of the world’s fourteen 8000-metre peaks, K2 alone has never been climbed in winter.

Nevertheless, the loss of the peak mountaineering season—summer, autumn, spring—to the pandemic seems to have triggered a sort of desperate resolve among the global mountaineering community not to let 2020 go completely barren. Why else, indeed, should climbers from across the globe attempt this one elusive climb? Over 60 mountaineers from 15 countries, as part of four separate teams, reached Pakistan in mid-December to try it once again.

Elaborating on the difficulties, Arnette tells Outlook: “The wind-chill of minus 50C presents severe problems. If there is a lot of snow, there is a danger of avalanches. Finally, there is rockfall. K2 has a lot of loose rock that climbers must be careful not to dislodge on those below.” Arnette, who climbed Mt Everest in 2011 and K2 in 2014—the oldest American to do so—says this is, “without question”, the biggest winter attempt on K2. “Usually, winter K2 teams number around 10 climbers.”

K2 is located in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Indians are not allowed to climb it. The peak has claimed an awful sacrifice in lives: 86 deaths aga­inst less than 400 summits. Two dozen climbers met their end during descent. In 2008, an avala­nche claimed 11 lives—a disaster dramatised in Hollywood’s The Summit (2012). Earlier tips of the hat included Vertical Limit and K2.

Summits of Mt Everest, in contrast, have become a touristy, annual jamboree deplored by ser­ious climbers. One of the most difficult of climbs, K2 draws the select few who dare. “K2, the ‘killer mountain’, is one of the most dangerous of all and the most difficult of the 8,000m ones. Winter climb is more difficult,” Kami Rita Sherpa, who has scaled Everest a record 24 times, tells Outlook from Nepal. Not part of the winter expeditions, he has climbed K2 in summer, along with several other 8,000m peaks.

The four teams attempting the summit include a three-member Iceland-Pakistan team, a three-member team of Sherpas, a seven-member Nepal-UK team and a team of over 50, about half of them Sherpas and the rest climbers from different countries. The last is the biggest winter expedition to K2 ever. It is being organised by the Nepal-based Seven Summits Treks (SST) and led by Chhang Dawa Sherpa, who has climbed all 14 ‘eight-thousanders’.

Icelander John Snorri attempted the K2 climb last winter as part of a team comprising Mingma G. Sherpa. This year, he has teamed up with seasoned Pakistani climbers Muhammad Ali Sadpara and his son, Sajid. Mingma G is leading a three-member all-Sherpa team, with Dawa Tenzing Sherpa and Kili Pemba Sherpa as his partners. Of the 14 peaks above 8,000 metres, Mingma G. has scaled 13, of them Everest five times, Manaslu four times and K2 twice.

The other seven-member team is being led by the legendary Nirmal ‘Nims’ Purja, a Nepalese who served in the British Army before making mountaineering his life. In 2019, he stunned the mountaineering community by scaling all fourteen 8000m peaks—all in the Himalayas—within six months. The previous record-holder took eight years. Purja’s team comprises Min­gma David Sherpa, Dawa Temba Sherpa, Pem­chhiri Sherpa, Gelje Sherpa, Mingma Tenzi Sherpa and Sandro Gromen-Hayes. Mingma David holds the world record of being the youngest to climb all 14 and Gelje has climbed 10.

Once high-altitude porters who helped western climbers in the Himalayas, many sherpas have emerged ace guides and mountaineers themselves. Mingma G and Purja’s teams have not taken any ‘clients’ for the present expedition.

The SST team is a commercial expedition, where Western mountaineers will get the assistance of Sherpas, like Snorri being assisted by the Sadparas.

“From our previous experience, we gather that there would be hardly two to three hours a day, around noon, when progress can be made. The rest of the day is not suitable for staying outside the camp,” Lakpa Dendi Sherpa, part of the SST team, tells Outlook over a WhatsApp call. He scaled K2 twice in 2018 and once in 2019, in summer and spring, but could make it up to 7,300 metres when he attempted it in the winter of 2019. He says climbers from Europe and the two Americas usually take five days from the base camp—at about 5,300m—to the summit, at 8,611m, but that Sherpas can cover the distance in three days. However, that changes in winter, when climbers have a short daily window to climb, with days when no progress can be made due to hostile weather.

“We plan to summit in the first week of February, but we are prepared to wait till February 28, when winter officially ends in the Himalayas. Overall, it’s a 62-day expedition,” says Thaneswar Guragai, manager at SST.

There are four stops between the starting point, the advanced base camp at 5,300 metres, and the summit at 8,611 metres—Camp I (6,050m), Camp II (6,700m), Camp III (7,250m) and Camp IV (7,950m). To acclimatise themselves, climbers usually go from base camp to Camp I, descend to base, then climb up to Camp II or III and descend again, before making the final summit push from the base camp. During these acclimatisation climbs, they set up camps, deposit equipment and fix ropes for the final climb. This year, till January 10, no team had managed to fix ropes above camp III due to the hostile weather.

Talking about the challenge, Purja wrote on his website, “Not only do the sheerness of the slopes and overall exposure create a technically challenging climb, the weather is always the great opponent on K2. Summit winds reach hurricane force, still-air temperatures are below -65 degree Celsius and the winter’s low barometric pressure means even less oxygen, so the margins of error are almost non-existent; the smallest mistake can have catastrophic consequences.”

Social media updates from the mountaineers throw some glimpses at the difficulties they face. On December 29, the three-member Iceland-Pakistan team recorded -30 degree Celsius during the day at camp II during their acclimatisation climb. There was a massive stretch of blue ice difficult to step on, with rocks collapsing and the weather turning bad. The same day, The SST team reported -25 degrees at the base camp. On January 4, Chhang Dawa Sherpa wrote on Facebook, “After two nights on 7,050m in the Black Pyramid [the steep, icy section between Camps II and III], waiting in strong winds, our rope fixing Sherpa returned safely to BC. Unfortunately, they were not able to fix higher and were forced down due to the deteriorating weather. However, they were able to leave enough rope and oxygen for the next opportunity.”

The SST team includes mighty climbers. Spaniard Sergei Mingote climbed seven eight-thousanders without bottled oxygen and plans of doing the same for the other seven peaks. Romanian Alex Gavan has also scaled seven ‘eight-thousanders’, including K2, without bottled oxygen. Italian female climber Tamara Lunger has summited six, including K2, in 2014 without supplementary oxygen. Irishman Noel Hannah has climbed Mt Everest twice, K2 once and Mt Manaslu without supplementary oxygen.

But a winter climb, especially of K2, is not only about experience, ability and superhuman endurance but involves luck too, especially regarding the weather. Mingma G wrote on Facebook on January 10 that “finally” there was sunshine at the base camp after eight days. “We remained inside the tent for seven days because of high wind and clouds and low temperature. We are not sure about our camp at 7,000m. We have most of our gears in Camp 2 which is just below Black Pyramid. If the tent was blown away then we would have had to go back home,” he wrote.

The same day, Purja’s team climbed till Camp II, only to find one of their worst fears had come true. “It was a wreckage site. Both our tents and all equipment we had left here for the summit plan were destroyed and swept away by the wind. We have lost everything, including all our kits, sleeping bags, mattresses, heated shoe insoles, summit gloves/mittens, summit base layers, paragliding equipment, cooking equipment etc. I am devastated to be breaking this news. Now, I have to reassess and replan everything,” Purja wrote.

In mountaineering, making a safe descent is no less a challenge than achieving the summit. With several Sherpas in the four teams having the experience of high altitude rescue operations, all we can hope for is an epoch-making adventure without a disaster. The redoubtable K2, relentless and forbidding, is open for a challenge.

By Snigdhendu Bhattacharya in Calcutta