December 28, 2003

The golden jubilee year of the first successful climb on the Nanga Parbat largely went unnoticed in the country

IT has become known as the highest rock and ice wall in the world. For most of the year it remains wrapped in clouds, avalanches thunder under it incessantly. This is Nanga Parbat that was first climbed back in 1953, the year 2003 being the Golden Jubilee year of that feat, which has unfortunately gone almost unnoticed in the country.

Nanga Parvata, as the old record refers to the mountain, means a Naked Mountain. The probable reason behind this unpalatable name is the fact that after a series of low-lying hills, a giant mountain suddenly springs up from nowhere, with a huge glacial mass and snow. Among the locals, however, the Nanga is known as Diamir, the king of the mountains.

After K-2, it is the second highest peak in Pakistan with a height of 8,126 metres, and the eighth highest peak of the Himalayan Range, and the ninth in the entire world.

The name Himalayas, by the way, comes from Sanskrit words ‘Hima’ (snow) and ‘Alaya’ (abode). It is the greatest mountain range in the world with an approximate length of about 2,400 kilometres.

Back to the Nanga Parbat, it has always been associated with tragedies, with a great number of mountaineers, trekkers, visitors and transport vehicles having perished on and around it, giving it the notorious reputation of being the Killer Mountain. Some climbers have also called it the Cursed Mountain. The locals — and, amazingly, some foreigners as well — attribute Nanga’s killer instincts to the presence of demons and fairies in the area!

Like a whole lot of other things in the region, Nanga Parbat was discovered by nineteenth-century Europeans. The Schlagintweit brothers, who hailed from Munich, were probably the ones to did it. Since then a number of German — and some British — expeditions tried to scale the peak, but suffered serious setbacks.

It was in 1953 when Dr Karl M. Herligkoffer organized a 10-member mountaineering expedition. Peter Aschenbrenner was made its climbing leader. He was 51 at the time, and had taken part in the ill-fated expeditions during 1932 and, again, in 1934 when he was frost-bitten.

Mountaineering circles had grave doubts about the effort, as in their eyes, the expedition was plagued with doubts, opposition, lack of funds and court proceedings. They also thought that Herligkoffer, who by profession was a physician, was not qualified to lead such a major expedition. To add to their doubts, the doctor joined the team late and is said to have left early.

Very rightly, the government of Pakistan did not allow Sherpas from Nepal to work with the party. Obviously, the step was taken to ensure employment for the local porters who did a splendid job. The expedition had reached Pakistan a bit late, and it would never have been able to go to the mountains had the government not airlifted its men and material to Gilgit.

Unfortunately, however, monsoons broke early that year, and the climbing leader ordered the members to wind up the expedition. Four members of the team — Buhl, Ertl, Frauenberg and Kempter — still went ahead with the climbing, arguing that the weather would clear up soon.

On June 30, they climbed to Camp V at about 25,000 feet. On July 2, Buhl and Kempter were near the Silver Saddle, ready to attack the summit. They did realize that they could not cover 4,000 feet in a day, and return to the camp. They also realized that they would be required to spend a night in the open.

On July 3, Buhl, like a good mountaineer, started at 1am. Kempter followed him, but abandoned the idea. It was now a one-to-one fight. It was very hot when the sun rose. Consequently, at mid-day, Buhl cached his rucksack, food and spare pullover and some medicines on the subsidiary summit of the Nanga, now identified as NP North.

The final stages of the climb proved extremely difficult. It was around 6pm when he came to the last gendarme, “a massive obstruction which had to be traversed with great care.” Buhl, therefore, scrambled it up on all-fours. He could not climb it otherwise. Subsequently, he realized that he “could not go higher”; he was on the Nanga Parbat peak!

As is the custom, he hoisted the Pakistani flag and his area’s pennant on his ice-axe and took the some mandatory photographs. He then started the descent. Now it was a “race with death”. When the sun went down, the air became extremely cold. He was coming down without his ice-axe, as he had, in natural excitement, left it behind on the summit. And then suddenly his right crampon slipped off his boot, leaving him “like a stark”. He had the support of one crampon and ski-sticks. He inched his way down with sheer determination. After half-an-hour complete darkness surrounded the mountain.

Buhl spent the night “standing on a wobbly block of stones” in the middle of a steel rock face. “There was not enough level ground for him to crouch let alone to sit; all night he had to hang on to the rock face with one hand and his ski-sticks with the other, and he had nothing to put on, not even a pullover to keep him warm.”

He did not allow himself any sleep during the whole night, as it would have invited instantaneous freezing and a sudden and sure death. All this was happening “at a height of more than 26,000 feet”. A marvellous feat of self-discipline, endurance and stamina!

At about 6.30pm, his friends — Ertl and Frauenberg — were helping him into the tent. The joy of the meeting was “beyond Buhl’s power of description.” After more than 50 years and some 20 deaths by that time, the nanga Parbat had been climbed. Buhl had been unbelievably lucky.

According to Professor Dyhrenfurth, a keen climber, an Olympic gold medalist and a geologist by profession, “the 40-hour solo effort by the Tyrolean wonder-climber was a heroic performance; but it should be stressed that his method of attack is not to be recommended on other eight-thousanders!”

Austro-German Hermann Buhl was 29 years of age when he achieved this landmark. Just four years later, he died during an expedition on another Pakistani mountain, the Broad Peak (8,047 metres). They did climb the peak, but Buhl along with Diemberger, headed towards the nearby Chogolinsa peak (7,654 meters). They surmounted that as well, but on the way down, Buhl fell through a cornice, and now lies peacefully buried in the Pakistani mountains which he loved immensely. Should we call this tragedy a revenge of the Nanga Parbat demons?

Since that effort by Buhl in 1953, the nanga has been climbed on many occasions by many expeditions from different routes in the last fifty years. Among them, there have been nine Pakistanis; Colonel (retd) Sher Khan, Rajab Shah, Muhammad Ullah (twice), Atta, Aziz Beg, Rozi Ali, Hassan, Kudrat Ali and Ameer-ud-Din. The Killer Mountain, however, has also continued to quench its thirst with the blood of many famous climbers. The cruel, but healthy and fascinating drama would continue till such time as brave ad courageous people live on this planet.

The unfortunate part is that Nanga Parbat and other mountainous areas of Pakistan now lie in a state of official neglect. They are full of pollutants and, regrettably, it is impossible to enjoy a visit to them. Clean-up expeditions organized by the Alpine Club of Pakistan and other NGOs have done a good job by clearing some garbage, but these organizations are short of resources, and only the state can do what is required, and on an urgent basis.

Undoubtedly, a pollution-free Nanga Parbat, and, indeed, all other mountains, would be a befitting tribute to the memory of Hermann Buhl, a decent human being and an accomplished climber.

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