Broad Peak the Limits of Partnership
As we broke through the 8,000- metre barr ier, the ther mometer read near - 40C. The low winter sun shone above a sea of cloud, which hid the earth far below. A disembodied voice brought me out of my trance. “We’ll be serving a warm lunch shortly,” a flight attendant announced over the intercom.
I was flying back from the Krakow Mountain Festival, the Polish equivalent of our Banff fest. Nine months had passed since the first winter ascent of Broad Peak. However, the drama that played out on its summit r idge on the night of March 5, 2013, was still raw in people’s minds. In panel discussions and in hallway conversations, the questions ranged from whether the climbers should have turned around, to exactly what they could – or should – have done to assist one another. In other words, decisions that can be debated
in living rooms and bars but have to be made quickly, with imperfect knowledge and muddled brains, in the mountains.
Climbing eight-thousanders in winter (I’m told) is like trench warfare. In the summer, you might have to suffer for a few days while going for the summit, but you have the dolce vita in base camp to look forward to. In winter, even that haven is a miserable place, one where you’re warm only inside your sleeping bag. By early March, Maciej Berbeka, Adam Bielecki, Tomasz Kowalski and Artur Malek had spent over a month at the head of the wintry Baltoro glacier, below the west face of Broad Peak. They’d already attempted the summit once but were dr iven back to base camp by a blizzard. Almost two weeks of snow and wind ensued. When the skies finally cleared, they made their packs and headed up the mountain, for what they hoped was the last time. Two days later, they settled in for a few hours’ sleepless rest at high camp at 7,400 metres.
A shaky video shows long feathers of frost had grown inside the tents by the time the four began to stir. They emerged into a bitterly cold but windless dawn. A ser ies of crevasses slowed them down, and it was already noon when they crested the summit r idge. In spite of the late hour they went on, over hard snow, rock steps and cornices. Stopping for a breather, Bielecki wondered aloud whether they should turn around. Without a word, the 59- year-old Berbeka, who’d made it alone to within an hour of the summit in the winter of 1988, grabbed his ice axe and headed up. Soon afterward the r idge broadened and they unroped. With gloved, numbed hands, even the simple action of untying from the rope required a major effort. Step by step, lungs raw from the cold, thin air, they continued: together yet separate, each climber inside his own oxygen-depr ived world.
The sun hung low in the sky by the time Bielecki stood on top.When Malek arrived on the summit half an hour later, the snow glowed with the ominous orange of sunset. One by one, the climbers summitted, snapped a few photos and headed down. Few words were exchanged when a descending climber would pass one still struggling upward. As daylight faded, the cold intensified, cutting through the thick down suits.
Driven by an animal fear of a winter night at 8,000 metres, Bielecki hurr ied down. Every time he’d look back, he’d see the pinpoint of Malek’s headlamp a few hundred metres away. He assumed the other two were not far behind. It was only when he was almost down to high camp that he saw another light still high on the summit ridge, and realized something was very wrong. All through that endless night Bielecki and, from base camp, the expedition leader Krzysztof Wielicki, encouraged a dazed Kowalski to continue. But as the sun rose again over the Karakoram, his radio fell silent. Of Berbeka, there was no sign.Two days later, the survivors were back in base camp. After another three days, with not a trace of the missing climbers and the mountain enveloped in cloud and lashed by wind, the expedition headed down the glacier.
They returned home to a storm of controversy. The popular press, drawn by the tragic events surrounding the ascent, breathlessly reported facts and guesses. The climbing community was divided, some accusing Bielecki and Malek of abandoning their teammates, others arguing that the two had barely made it down themselves. Less than three months later, another expedition, led by Maciej Berbeka’s brother Jacek, left for Broad Peak. They hoped to elucidate the fate of the dead climbers, and to give them a respectful burial.They found Kowalski’s body on the summit ridge, hanging from a fixed rope by an ascender. One of his crampons had come off and dangled by a strap from his boot.They didn’t find Berbeka.
A commission of five experienced high-altitude mountaineers prepared a report analyzing the ascent and the ensuing tragedy. Instead of laying the matter to rest, the report further fuelled the controversy. It blamed the tragedy on all four climbers, for pushing on to the summit in spite of the late hour, but especially on Bielecki and Malek, for descending alone instead of assisting their weakening partners. Bielecki fired back that the commission had absolutely no clue about the conditions the climbers faced; that the four trod the very edge of what they and their gear were capable of.
Most of us who go to the mountains will never be subjected to the kind of test Berbeka, Bielecki, Kowalski and Malek faced. I certainly haven’t been. We can still ask ourselves what we’d be willing to do for our partners. Few of us would refuse help if we could give it without risk to ourselves. What if helping meant we might not make it back? If it’d been me instead of Bielecki or Malek, would I have waited for Kowalski, to help him set up a rappel or fix a crampon? And if I’d waited, would it have made a difference, or would I also have started shaking uncontrollably before slipping into unconsciousness? What if it’d been me instead of Kowalski? Would I have wanted my partners to stay with me?
The truth is, I don’t know what I would’ve done as the sun slipped below the horizon and darkness enveloped Broad Peak’s summit ridge. The wall of the mess tent in base camp was decorated with a quote from Wawrzyniec Zulawski, a legendary mid- 20th century Polish climber. It read, “You don’t abandon a friend in the mountains, even when he’s nothing more than a block of ice.” What are we prepared to risk for our friends – and what do we expect them to risk for us?