8 expert mountaineers trapped on a mountain, striving to reach the summit one moment, then suddenly fighting for survival against a ferocious blizzard on the descent!
It takes a certain type of adventurer to want to climb a dangerous mountain just because it’s there.
The second highest mountain on planet Earth after Mount Everest is K2. It rears skyward within the Karakoram range of mountains between Pakistan and China, rising majestically to a height of 8,611 meters above sea level.
It has a reputation of claiming lives, of teasing climbers with visions of reaching the summit, only to have those hopes and dreams dashed, sometimes along with their bodies on the jagged rocks below.
Back in 1953, a group of American mountaineers were destined to be only the fifth expedition to try and scale K2. The team was led by Charles Houston and the team was comprised of Robert Bates, Art Gilkey, Peter Schoening, Robert Craig, Dee Molenaar, George Bell, and Tony Streather.
Both Houston and Bates had attempted to reach the summit in 1938, failed due to brutal weather conditions, diminishing supplies, as well as the clash of personalities within his team. Learning from that lesson, his team was selected carefully, both for the climbing abilities and the fact that they would all just get along, and work as a cohesive unit.
The planned route to the summit was the steep Abruzzi Spur and Houston and his team made sure that camps were set up along the way just in case they were driven back down by bad weather. However, on this route only small camps were possible, so it had to be a very lightweight expedition with no oxygen tanks and no support staff at the bases.
On 20 June 1953, the team assembled at the base of K2, fully prepared, and the trek to conquer the unconquerable began.
Houston had selected his team well, the eight mountaineers acting as a cohesive unit as they scaled the rugged landscape to a height of 7,750 m. They were making great progress, each man a crucial component in the unit, each holding their own as they ascended through the base camps.
At this height their goal was clearly in sight, finally achievable, within reach, when a storm blasted into them ferociously just as they reached their highest camp, forcing them to hunker down or risk getting swept off a cliff edge into oblivion.
Despite these appalling conditions, now crammed inside four small tents, they were all in good spirits, in good condition, and had more than enough rations for ten days. Even though they were stuck fast at Camp VIII, as soon as the storm blew over, they were confident they would reach the peak. After all, most of the difficult climbing was behind them.
But this was as far as they were ever going to get. The remainder of their time on K2 was destined to be one of simply fighting to stay alive.
First, the conditions worsened beyond belief, the intensity of the howling winds rattling the side of the tents and confining the adventurers to their sleeping bags. Lighting the stoves was an impossibility, the beleaguered men limited to making a few hot drinks only.
On 4 August, the second incident happened that would make their perilous situation even worse.
So fierce was the gale that one of the tents was yanked from its moorings and snatched away by the wind, forcing the two previous occupants to squeeze inside two of the already cramped tents.
After about 3 torturous days the weather began to clear. The embattled adventurers emerged into the clearing skies, sleep-deprived yet eager to continue the climb. Two of them, Bell and Molenaar, were too frostbitten to continue and would have to return while the others scaled the final distance.
But before anything could be done, the third incident occurred that would scupper the final ascent. It came unexpectedly from Art Gilkey as he cried out, grasped his leg, and collapsed unconscious.
A quick examination by Houston determined that he had thrombophlebitis, a blood clot in his leg probably due to inactivity and that if he didn’t get medical treatment as quickly as possible, he was as good as dead.
Every team member understood, as Gilkey was unable to put any weight on his leg, that it was going to take the combined effort of all of them to get their fellow climber off the mountain safely. Thoughts of further advancement were quickly forgotten as a plan was hastily concocted to descend the mountain as quickly as possible.
Their first attempt at dragging him down the mountain, secured in a makeshift sling made from a torn tent and a sleeping bag, failed, and even threatened to start an avalanche that would have doomed them all.
An alternative route was quickly scouted by Craig and Schoening, but before they could tackle the rock and ice ridge descent, the weather turned nasty again, forcing them back into their tents for a further three days.
During that time, Gilkey’s condition deteriorated, the clot first moving into his other leg and then his lungs. At the same time, the rest of the team was starting to suffer from dehydration. They were out of options and out of time. It was either risk the descent in the storm while they still had the strength, or stay and hope for the weather to turn in their favor.
These men were not the sit and wait type. In these situations, they were normally the rescuers, not the rescued.
Wrapping Art Gilkey once again, they dragged him to the edge of the precipice that started the new route down and began the treacherous descent. The wind howled at them, the snow blinded them and froze their limbs, threatening to pry them from the face of the mountain, but they made it to Camp VII.
Almost.
At the last cliff edge before Camp VII, the climbers slipped, and screaming, tumbled down the steep ridge.
Pete Schoening, at the rear, was belaying down Gilkey, and somehow managed to hold all the climbers from slipping further, preventing them all from certain death. In the fall, Houston was momentarily knocked unconscious while the others had fallen about 200 feet, shaken but relatively unharmed.
Fortunately, they were all capable of climbing back up to Camp VII, except for Gilkey who had to be anchored in place on the slope below as raising him up to the camp was impossible. In an effort to make him comfortable for the night, they intended to carve out a ledge to shelter him from the harsh elements, and gathered some tools together for the task.
By the time they returned, Art Gilkey was gone, a patch of fresh snow from a small avalanche where he had been secured.
The news was a blow to their morale as they all huddled in the tents for the night, bodies frozen, minds numb.
The next morning, despite a concussed Houston having cracked ribs and Bell severely frostbitten hands and feet, the seven exhausted climbers began the arduous descent through the camps, carefully, determined to avoid any further mishaps.
At each camp, they managed to find supplies that they had stored beforehand, in the eventuality that this exact scenario came about. It was that foresight, as well as their will as a unit to survive, that kept them dragging one frozen foot in front of the other. For four days they stumbled on until they reached Camp II, and safety.
Each and every one of the survivors was suffering in one form or another from the harsh weather conditions, icy wind and snow seeping into their bones, nearly sapping their will to place one snow-crusted boot in front of the other. If not for the closely-knit bond that had been hardened by the unforgiving cold, further casualties would have occurred, other bodies would have been consumed by the snow.
Alive, bruised, battered, but not broken, they had failed to conquer the mountain. Yet the incredible experience of almost scaling the Savage Mountain known as K2 would forever be etched into their memories.