K2

The mountain that brings out the best, and worst

That K2 laughs, a lot. Perhaps because it is only the world’s second. When it laughs it’s sides shudder, great roaring clouds of ice and snow tumble down it’s flanks, sweeping all in their path, climbers of all categories, the best, worst, the best-prepared, the unprepared, the slowest and most careful, and least, the fastest, fittest, most eccentric, conventional, and the sherpas too.

And then, K2 wheezes, and monsoon-like winds lash rock faces and ice walls alike.

It depends where you are on the mountain: above say, 6,000 metres is not a place to hang around. Supplies come slow, the weather changes fast. So do we. It becomes harder and harder to go up, decisions get worse and worse. And by the time one gets to say, 7,000 metres, well, things begin to get very serious. Without oxygen tanks, survival is a question of hours. But oxygen tanks do not arrive on the mountain by luck; they must be carried, carted up, and they weigh heavy on a back, and mind, so heavy that a climber often takes a brave but correct decision in eschewing these metallic cylindric objects from his or her pack, in order to move more quickly, or at least leave them in his or her tent from where he or she has invariably slept an uncomfortable night before making his or her summit push.

Weather controls summit attempts: blizzards are bad enough, but hot sun can often be more dangerous, melting snows into avalanches, and causing great blocks of ice to fall and perhaps even severe…