Conquering K2: Mountaineers Make History
Until recently, only one of the world’s 14 highest peaks hadn’t been summited during the winter. That changed when a team of climbers stepped onto the 28,251 foot peak of K2 on January 16th, 16 hours after they left their tents at high camp. The team of 10 Sherpas and Nepalis gathered just below the summit of the 2nd highest peak on earth, so they could reach the top as a team. They took the final steps to the summit while singing the Nepalese National Anthem.
A Tall Task
K2 took its name from a 19th-century surveying project which aimed to map high peaks. Since it was mapped in the Karakoram Range on the China/Pakistan border and was the second mountain they met, K2 became its moniker. Its modern-day nickname, however, reveals the risks of its icy, rocky face: Savage Mountain.
The first serious attempt to summit K2 began was a 1902 Anglo-Swiss expedition. That team climbed the mountain’s northeastern side to 18,600ft (5,670m) before having to turn back. In 1909, Prince Luigi Amedeo, Duke of Abruzzi, led a team up K2’s southeast face to about 20,505ft (6,250m). After looking for other ways up the mountain, the expedition was forced to turn back, the Duke declaring K2 would never be conquered. He left his mark on the mountain, despite his failure to reach its peak— the southeast ridge of K2 is known today as the Abruzzi Spur and remains part of the standard route.
In 1938, the First American Karakoram expedition made a reconnaissance of the mountain and determined that the Abruzzi Spur was the most practical—though still difficult—climbing route. Led by Charles Houston, the team reached about 26,000 ft before having to turn back due to bad weather.
K2 Conquered
After more than 50 years after the first serious expedition on K2, a pair of Italian climbers—Lino Lacedelli
and Achille Compagnoni—became the first to reach the summit in 1954. They were celebrated and hailed as mountaineering icons for their historic achievement, but the years that followed created great controversy around their climb. The information came out that selfish actions by Lacedelli and Compagnoni had put two other team members in danger, landing one of them in the hospital.
Savage Mountain
By the time Lacedelli and Compagnoni successfully reached K2’s summit, the mountain to later be nicknamed “Savage Mountain” had already claimed the lives of six climbers.
The first tragic expedition cost four men their lives.
In 1939, an American Karakorum expedition got within 660ft of the summit. The losses happened on the way down (as they often do on mountains 8,000m or higher, known as “Eight-Thousanders”). One of the team members was left at Camp VII because he was unsteady on his feet, and the others descended to retrieve supplies from the camp(s) further down the mountain. They found nothing at the camps, and eventually reached Base Camp, after which they organized two different attempts to bring their teammate at Camp VII back down to Base Camp. Both tries were unsuccessful. On the third attempt, three Sherpas set out to rescue the man. It was then that K2 claimed its first victims: the three Sherpa and stranded climber were never seen alive again.
Charles Houston returned to K2 to lead the 1953 American expedition, during which the team reached 25,590ft. There, they were trapped by a storm that raged for 10 days, during which one of the climbers, Art Gilkey, fell seriously ill. It was later determined that he had a blood clot followed by pulmonary embolism. The team knew he wouldn’t make it if he remained on the mountain, so they began a dangerous descent, lowering Gilkey in a sleeping bag as the storm raged on. As they descended, one of the men lost his footing, causing others to fall into their ropes. Pete Schoening wedged his ice ax into the cliff and successfully stopped the others from falling off the mountain. Gilkey, they discovered as they got back into position, was no longer connected to them. It’s suspected that he either cut himself loose to save his colleagues’ lives or was swept away in an avalanche.
Mount Everest is arguably the most famous of the world’s peaks, being the highest of them all. Members of the public are aware of the many tragedies that have occurred on that mountain and the many successes of mountaineers who’ve reached its peak. But though all of the Eight-Thousanders are inherently dangerous to climb, K2 has a far higher fatality rate than Everest. Of the 300 climbers who have summited K2, more than 80 people have died attempting it, putting the mountain’s fatality rate upwards of 27%. In contrast, more than 6,000 people have submitted Mount Everest, and around 300 people have perished in their attempts—a fatality rate of around 5% (1% since 1990).
Of the 14 Eight-Thousanders, K2 is the 2nd most dangerous to climb, behind 10th-highest mountain Annapurna, whose fatality rate is over 30%.
Difficult Climb
Many factors make K2 challenging and dangerous for even the most experienced mountaineers. These include a lack of Sherpas, support and fixed ropes—all of which are available on Everest. The trek is also physically and technically difficult. The steep angle of K2’s faces means that climbers face a steep journey from day one, and there’s great technical difficulty in the rock, ice and alpine climbing on the way to the top.
The mountain’s height in comparison to the surrounding peaks means that it bears the brunt of the area’s frequent weather fronts. Climbers face year-round weather extremes, and the rapidly-changing conditions are notoriously difficult to forecast. A severe storm on the mountain on August 13th, 1995, resulted in the deaths of 6 climbers who died descending from the summit. The storm that killed them brought winds over 99 mph and subzero temperatures, and the conditions trapped the climbers at the cusp of the Death Zone, 8,000m (at and above 8,000m, oxygen is so limited that the body begins die). Extreme weather had previously contributed to the deaths of five climbers between August 6th and 10th, 1986. That year was a particularly deadly one: out of the 27 who reached the summit, 13 died.
One area of the mountain is especially dangerous for climbers: the Bottleneck. This narrow passage sits about 8,200m up the mountain, above the Death Zone. Even with supplemental oxygen, there is a limited amount of time for climbers to be exposed to conditions at that altitude, so the location of the Bottleneck is problematic in itself. Then there’s the actual climbing.
The Bottleneck’s angle is about 50 to 60 degrees and sits directly below a massive hanging glacier. The path is prone to serac (ice block) falls and avalanches because of that glacier, under which climbers remain for more than 300 feet.
The area is notoriously deadly, with at least 17 fatalities on the mountain having occurred at, around or above the Bottleneck. In 2008, multiple serac falls and avalanches around the Bottleneck led to the deaths of 11 climbers in just a few hours.
Triumph & Tragedy
The mountaineers who made the historic summit on January 16th have now reported they made it safely back to base camp, and they continue to celebrate the history they’ve made for themselves and their country.
At the same time, they also have the weight of two recent fatalities of the Kamaroak Mountains on their hearts and minds. On Saturday, a Spanish climber fell to his death lower on K2, and an American mountaineer was killed when he fell from a nearby mountain this past weekend.
It is a time for mourning and a time for celebrating. The team’s success finally shines the spotlight on those who have been the backbone of mountaineering since the very beginning. Now, the Sherpa and Nepalis have their rightful place in the history books.
“For all the other 8000ers summited in winter, no Sherpa was with them, so this is an opportunity for Sherpa to demonstrate their strength,” Minga G said before embarking on the climb. “Besides alpinists, all the climbers take help from Sherpa to fulfill their dreams of 8000m peaks. I have helped several foreign climbers to get to the summit of different 8000ers…This climb is for all the Sherpa community who are so known because of our friends and clients from different foreign countries.”