Stranded at 20,000ft ‘Like his mum, Tom never sees mountains as his enemy’
His mother died on K2, so what has driven missing climber Tom Ballard to take on the same dangerous challenges? Here his family’s friend, filmmaker Chris Terrill, explains
Tom Ballard is missing. All we know is that the 30-year-old is somewhere on a wind-driven, ice-impacted peak called Nanga Parbat in the Himalayas of northern Pakistan – the ninth highest mountain in the world.
The son of Alison Hargreaves, the British climber who conquered Everest and who died during an infamous attempt to summit K2, hasn’t been heard from since Sunday. God willing he is safe and either awaiting rescue or for the appropriate weather window to descend. But mountains like Nanga Parbat, at more than 8,000m, are not forgiving. That is why it is also known as the Killer Mountain. Notoriously difficult to climb, it has claimed more than its fair share of climbers who proved unequal to its challenge.
Tom and his climbing partner, the Italian Daniele Nardi, were attempting to summit the peak. On Sunday, Mr Nardi’s ground team reported the pair had reached around 20,670ft, however, they added: “The weather is not good, there was fog, sleet and wind gusts.” It was the last communication the team were to receive. There has been no contact since. No sighting either. Not yet. But those of us who know Tom and recognise his extraordinary talent as a climber are absolutely not giving up hope. His father Jim called me yesterday afternoon to chat and to give us both the chance to fortify the other against dark pessimism. He expressed concern of course, but was utterly confident in his son’s supreme survival skills and abilities as one of the finest climbers of his generation. “We just have to wait and see,” he said, “but Tom is in the best hands – his own.”
I then messaged Tom’s beloved sister Kate who was just four when her mother died. She is currently working abroad and like the rest of us just waiting for any news. I told her that I was thinking of her and she wrote straight back to say “Thank you Chris but I trust and believe all will be well xx”. These were not just the plaintive words of a sister trying to fend off fears but ones that testify to a heartfelt belief in her brother’s superhero status as one of the world’s most talented alpinists. In 2014-15, he became the first climber to solo the north faces of all six major Alpine peaks in a single winter. Tom knows climbing. Tom knows mountains. And perhaps most importantly, Tom knows Tom.
I have known this extraordinary young man since he was six years old. In 1996, I accompanied him, his sister Kate, then four, and their dad, Jim, to K2, the world’s second highest mountain in the Western Himalayas. Jim had launched a massive expedition to get his two young children to the base camp of K2 so they could say their final goodbyes to their mother Alison Hargreaves, the great British mountaineer who just weeks earlier had been killed on the mountain’s upper slopes.
Barely three months after becoming the first woman to reach the summit of Everest unaided she attempted to climb K2. In fact she successfully summited the mountain but, caught in a storm, perished on the descent. Her body was never found. Tom, when told by his father of his mother’s demise, asked if they could go to K2 to say goodbye. Jim immediately mobilised the money and support to grant his son’s wish, feeling strongly that visiting “Mummy’s mountain’ now would help achieve emotional closure for his children in later life. After all, Alison’s body remained on the mountain so there could be no conventional funeral to help with the process of healing.
I went with the family to make a film about their extraordinary journey for the BBC called Alison’s Last Mountain. Our aim was to get to base camp and it was a hard, grinding slog to get there. We traversed increasingly rugged terrain including the immense Baltoro glacier and all the time, as we gained altitude, the oxygen thinned dramatically. But with the help of 80 porters, some of whom took it in turns to carry little Kate, we made it after two weeks of arduous trekking. Tom walked every step himself – a sign of the determination that he was to exhibit to such great effect in later life. Did Alison’s children get closure as Jim wanted? I don’t know. But what I do know is that Alison lives on in both of them. Kate, now aged 28, is the spitting image of her mum – petite, pretty, steadfast and determined.
And Tom? If he did achieve some sort of closure on one level, a deepseated energy and passion was ignited deep within. He grew up knowing he wanted to be a climber like his mum. It was in his DNA after all and he was not about to deny it in himself. I have stayed close to the family all these years and over that time I have quietly watched Tom grow into a powerful, personable young man – strong in body, mind and spirit. With his muscular physique and innate climbing talents he has also developed his own climbing ethos. A firm set of beliefs that define his relationship with mountains and he stands resolutely by them.
Tom does not see mountains as the enemy. He does not “launch assaults” on them. They are not his nemesis, his foe or his adversary. He does not see them as malevolent either. “You have to understand a mountain,” he has always told me. “You have to respect them and earn the right to climb them. You have to be as one with a mountain. You don’t confront a mountain – you embrace it.”
Nanga Parbat, the mountain on which Tom is now stranded, is not the only mountain in the region called the Killer Mountain. So too is K2. Both peaks, though slightly lower than Everest, are more challenging to climb and have both claimed more lives. None the less, Tom would never refer to either as “killers”. I once asked him if he would ever want to climb K2 to get his own back for it killing his mother. “I would climb K2,” he said in his gentle but considered way,
“Not out of revenge but out of
He is an extraordinarily talented climber. We are not giving up hope
His mother’s death ignited a passion deep within
respect.” You may ask what motivates people like Tom to climb mountains – to pit their skill and strength against the invincibility of nature and the insuperability of gravity.
Especially when, like Tom, you know from personal experience how dangerous it is and how real the consequences are when a climb goes wrong. The “Because it is there” answer won’t do. Too trite by half. Too banal. Too simplistic. Too condescending. Climbers, in my experience, are complex creatures, driven by imperatives most of us would not begin to understand. Tom is such a creature – convoluted, intricate, driven and sometimes introspective but also heroic, noble, valiant, intrepid and courageous. He is made of the right stuff. He is made of his mother.
Tom is no fool. He is well aware of the dangers he faces every time he straps on his crampons and heads for the “hills”. He summited the Alpine peaks with verve and style so it was inevitable that he would turn his attention and apply his innate skills to climbing. He has returned to that part of the world he first visited as a six-year-old to say his final farewells to his mum. He knows the deal. He has always known the deal.
The mountain peaks in Pakistan beguile with their beauty but they are invested with an awesome power; a power born of wind, ice, snow and the sucking, inescapable pull of gravity. But it is my enduring hope right now that Tom made his pact with Nanga Parbat, showed it the respect it deserves so that both he and his partner Daniele are now being allowed to shelter in its bosom until help arrives or nature clears a path for their safe descent.
Climbers are complex creatures, driven by things we do not understand