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Ever tried to climb Pakistan's K2?
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About this iReport
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Posted August 3, 2008
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Location
K2 BASE CAMP PAKISTAN, Pakistan
K2 BASE CAMP PAKISTAN, Pakistan
Assignment
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DEATH ON K2, MY STORY by Ricardo Torres-Nava
I was both climber and expedition head for the International K2 expedition in 1992 with elite climbers from Mexico, Sweden and New Zealand. I am the first Mexican and Latin American to summit Mt. Everest and to complete the Seven Summtis Grand Slam (double version) and on that expedition were with me Gary Ball and Rob Hall, top New Zealand mountaneers and on the swedish side the two first swedish who climb Mt. Everest amongst others. My direct climbing partner was Adrian Benitez, one of Mexico's top mountaneers and on summit day, August 14th, 1992 we left camp 4 whilst the newzealanders, swedish and another mexican stayed as they were feeling sick due to high altitude. It was a difficult season weatherwise and our window of opportunity was getting slimmer so Adrian and I left for the top and when we were about 300 m from the summit an ice wall we were climbing broke and Adrian fell 9000 ft to his death. The last picture I took from us is here together with a general view of K2 but from the chinese side wich I attempted on 1993 as part as an international expedition led by the russian climber Valimir Baliverdin. Adrian fell and I was left in the middle of a storm hanging from a ledge, shuddering with panic and unable to move for a while. It took me over two hours getting to a safer place where I radioed to base camp with the unfortunate news. With the base camp telescope, Adrian's body was located only to disappear hours later due to the storm. In the mean time I had no time to mourn as I had to aid in the rescue of Gary Ball who had developed pulmonary and cerebral edema on Camp 4 at above 8000 meters. Bringing Gary down took us nearly four days due to bad weather. Finally the rescue helicopter made the ride to Skardu from where my wife, who had finish a very special ecological trek with 6 choice teenagers from Mexico, made the arrangements to airlift Gary to the Polyclinic in Islamabad where Dr. Shaukat Malik, a top cardiac surgeon was able to save his life. The sad end of the story is that he later died in Daulaghiri and Rob Hall, his climbing partner lost his life in 1996 during that deadly Everest season recount by Jon Krakauer in "On thin air". K2 is a killer mountain, the weather changes so quickly due to its own microclimate that all weather forcasts sometimes prove useless. Many people had lost their life there and sometimes in unforseen circumstances as the italian climber Renato Casarotto who fell to his death 500 ft away from base camp when an ice bridge broke. There is nothing lightly about climbing it , I have tried it twice by the pakistani and chinese side and I had swore never to try it again as some climbers get obsesed by its luring beauty. The chances of dying against summiting and coming back alive are 3 to 1 so I really doubt that if there are missing people there, they would be alive after a day. Many people ask themselves why we do this, that seems to be so risky. Life is a continuous risk, I live in a country where life means nothing, you can be mugged, kidnap, killed by mistake, threaten by the same authorities and police that are supposed to guard and protect us, so dying the "white death" on the mountain we chose to conquer doesn't see such an undignified option compared to being bagged by criminals after a kidnap goes sour as it just happened with a 14 year old boy, son of a gym tycoon. So, the mountain gives me a chance, crime doen't. At least there I have options that my own country has completely denied us. If you had to chose between risking your life doing what you love and enjoy and being robbed of your dignity even when in death, What would you chose? I hope that would answer those guessing why we seek adrenaline on top of a mountain. www.ricardotorresnava.com
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