and Gary, two Swedish climbers, and the three Mexicans.
Scott and I had also chosen to go superlight. Our tent was not a regular two-man model but a five-pound bivy tent. We had only one sleeping bag to share between the two of us. The idea was to sleep in our down suits, with the bag unzipped and draped over us like a blanket. In the claustrophobic confines of our cramped tent, we thought, this arrangement should keep us warm enough.
Our only rope was the fifty-foot line I had scavenged at Camp III. All of the rope we had originally brought had either been fixed in place or lost in the intervening storms.
That evening, August 13, Scott and I planned to get up at 10:30 P.M. and be out the door by midnight. But I knew better than to count on perfect weather for the next day. As I wrote in my diary—presciently, it turned out—”Weather is so fickle on K2 the only way to get good weather is to go high & wait it out. That’s our plan. Hang out here @ CIV until it looks good enough to go.”
The days that followed severely tried our patience. Scott and I got up to check the weather at 10:30 P.M., then again at midnight, 3:30 A.M., and 5:30 A.M . Each time we stuck our heads out the tent door, we saw that it was blowing hard and snowing—too nasty for a summit attempt. We had decided that if we could not take off by 5:30 A.M., it would be too late to get to the summit and back with a margin of safety. Once we’d made up our minds not to go on August 14, we simply lay in our cramped tent, trying to make the hours pass. “Dozed all day,” I wrote in my diary. “Didn’t eat shit. Try again tonight.”
During our time at Camp IV, we tried to yell over the wind to let the others know our plans. All of Hall & Ball’s team, including the Swedes and the Mexicans, were now intermittently using their bottled oxygen even while they slept. That made for a cruel trade-off: the longer they hung out at Camp IV, the less oxygen they’d have left to go to the summit with. We weren’t surprised, then, in the middle of the day on August 14, when two of the Mexicans, Ricardo Torres-Nava and Adrián Benítez, decidedto bail. They were experienced climbers—both had topped out on Everest—so we figured they wouldn’t have any trouble getting down to Camp III.
What happened on their descent we learned about only secondhand, over the radio from Dan Mazur and Jonathan Pratt, two of our teammates who were still at Camp III. The news shocked us badly, but I’m disturbed, upon rereading my diary, to see that I recorded it at the time with more outrage than compassion:
Apparently they tried to do a ski pole rappel (stupid!) @ the traverse & Adrian pulled it out & fell 3000’ to near CII—he’s dead! Idiots! Dan & Jonathan tried to get to him but it was too dangerous.
Below the Shoulder, at about 25,500 feet, there was a small ice step. Rather than downclimb it, Ricardo and Adrián set up a rappel. Despite having gotten up Everest, the two Mexicans apparently weren’t very technically skilled. As the anchor for their rappel, they simply thrust a ski pole into the slope. Even in the most desperate situation, that would have been an incredibly foolish thing to try. In fact, I’d never before heard of anybody trying to rappel off a ski pole. Ricardo got away with it, but when Adrián put his weight on the rope, the pole pulled. He never had a chance to stop himself. Even though they were sure he was dead, Jonathan and Dan spent the better part of two days trying to get to Adrián’s body; eventually they decided that it was so hazardous, they would be inviting another accident.
I’d guess now that the tone of my diary entry reflected the weeks of tension and frustration that had built up inside me by mid-August. The accident showed how close to the edge some of the climbers were on this unforgiving mountain. Adrián was a friendly and likable guy, and we were all saddened by his death. But the accident was entirely avoidable. He
Scott and I had also chosen to go superlight. Our tent was not a regular two-man model but a five-pound bivy tent. We had only one sleeping bag to share between the two of us. The idea was to sleep in our down suits, with the bag unzipped and draped over us like a blanket. In the claustrophobic confines of our cramped tent, we thought, this arrangement should keep us warm enough.
Our only rope was the fifty-foot line I had scavenged at Camp III. All of the rope we had originally brought had either been fixed in place or lost in the intervening storms.
That evening, August 13, Scott and I planned to get up at 10:30 P.M. and be out the door by midnight. But I knew better than to count on perfect weather for the next day. As I wrote in my diary—presciently, it turned out—”Weather is so fickle on K2 the only way to get good weather is to go high & wait it out. That’s our plan. Hang out here @ CIV until it looks good enough to go.”
The days that followed severely tried our patience. Scott and I got up to check the weather at 10:30 P.M., then again at midnight, 3:30 A.M., and 5:30 A.M . Each time we stuck our heads out the tent door, we saw that it was blowing hard and snowing—too nasty for a summit attempt. We had decided that if we could not take off by 5:30 A.M., it would be too late to get to the summit and back with a margin of safety. Once we’d made up our minds not to go on August 14, we simply lay in our cramped tent, trying to make the hours pass. “Dozed all day,” I wrote in my diary. “Didn’t eat shit. Try again tonight.”
During our time at Camp IV, we tried to yell over the wind to let the others know our plans. All of Hall & Ball’s team, including the Swedes and the Mexicans, were now intermittently using their bottled oxygen even while they slept. That made for a cruel trade-off: the longer they hung out at Camp IV, the less oxygen they’d have left to go to the summit with. We weren’t surprised, then, in the middle of the day on August 14, when two of the Mexicans, Ricardo Torres-Nava and Adrián Benítez, decidedto bail. They were experienced climbers—both had topped out on Everest—so we figured they wouldn’t have any trouble getting down to Camp III.
What happened on their descent we learned about only secondhand, over the radio from Dan Mazur and Jonathan Pratt, two of our teammates who were still at Camp III. The news shocked us badly, but I’m disturbed, upon rereading my diary, to see that I recorded it at the time with more outrage than compassion:
Apparently they tried to do a ski pole rappel (stupid!) @ the traverse & Adrian pulled it out & fell 3000’ to near CII—he’s dead! Idiots! Dan & Jonathan tried to get to him but it was too dangerous.
Below the Shoulder, at about 25,500 feet, there was a small ice step. Rather than downclimb it, Ricardo and Adrián set up a rappel. Despite having gotten up Everest, the two Mexicans apparently weren’t very technically skilled. As the anchor for their rappel, they simply thrust a ski pole into the slope. Even in the most desperate situation, that would have been an incredibly foolish thing to try. In fact, I’d never before heard of anybody trying to rappel off a ski pole. Ricardo got away with it, but when Adrián put his weight on the rope, the pole pulled. He never had a chance to stop himself. Even though they were sure he was dead, Jonathan and Dan spent the better part of two days trying to get to Adrián’s body; eventually they decided that it was so hazardous, they would be inviting another accident.
I’d guess now that the tone of my diary entry reflected the weeks of tension and frustration that had built up inside me by mid-August. The accident showed how close to the edge some of the climbers were on this unforgiving mountain. Adrián was a friendly and likable guy, and we were all saddened by his death. But the accident was entirely avoidable. He
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