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K2
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 ropes, or legs.
It is said by some, that when you have stepped on a summit you have conquered a mountain. Others, like me, disagree: you can only have truly conquered a mountain by coming back down again, and K2 is a mountain that challenges any descent, perhaps even more vigorously, humour replaced by a furious anger, in attempts to shake the intruder who dared stand at the peak, off the mountainside.
In such a climate climbing is a logistical nightmare: at what height did we pitch the tents, how much food did we leave, and oxygen? Will others have used the oxygen and eaten the food, mistakenly or not?
And then come the bigger questions: what do we do with those too tired, too frostbitten to carry on? Or those suffering from altitude sickness that hits anyone at any time, despite acclimatisation work on the way up? Do we promise them we will come back for them, or that someone will? How long will they have to…
