One of othe biggest news this mountaineering season was that of Ali Sadpara and Alex Txikon attempting to be the first ones to summit the Everest without supplemental oxygen in the winter. The first winter summit of Everest with oxygen was done in 1980 by Andrej Zawada’s team from Poland of mountaineers Leszek Cichy and Krystof Wielicki.

The duo made several acclimatising climbs and made it as far as Camp 3 (7,100m) of the Everest in the bitter cold (it was -35C). Then they announced they were going to Camp 4 on February 23, seemingly to make a summit push. However, they returned with this message from Txikon: “Sometimes life puts you in complicated decisions that you must take in a thousandth of a second and you appreciate all your life and that of all your companions.”

The winds were entirely too strong for them to continue. And according to the forecast, they would not get any better while the ‘official’ season (until the end of February) lasted.

For the world’s elite mountaineers, winter climbing season in the Himalayas and Karakoram is the new frontier in big mountain climbing

Early on February 27, Txikon tweeted a photo from their successful expedition to the Nanga Parbat in 2016, in which he, along with Ali Sadpara and Simone Moro became the first mountaineers to summit the Nanga Parbat in winter. Accompanying the photo was this message: “Two years ago, we did the first winter summit of Nanga Parbat. As then, Ali Sadpara and I are together today. This time, winter has not given us the opportunity, but I’m sure the future will bring us together in a new adventure.”

TRAGEDY AT NANGA PARBAT

Earlier, in January, after beco­ming the second expedition to successfully summit the Nanga Parbat in winter, things soon turned tragic for the climbing duo of Elisabeth Revol and Tomek Mackiewicz. The weather, unexpectedly, took a turn for the worse and according to Revol, Mack­iewicz was exhibiting signs of snow blindness.

They managed to make their way to a crevasse at around 7,200-7,400m where Revol communicated Mackiewicz’s condition to base camp. She was told to leave him behind, as help was on its way, and begin descending. By the time she left Mackiewicz he had already begun exhibiting symptoms of acute mountain sickness — blood was coming out of his mouth, a sign that his body was filling up with fluid — making his chances for survival very slim.

Meanwhile, on January 27, an elite team of mountaineers from a Polish expedition, hoping to do the first winter summit of the K2, was flown in from the base camp to rescue the duo stranded on Nanga Parbat. Adam Bielecki, Denis Urubko, Piotr Tomala and Jarek Botor were acclimatised and ready for the rescue. They arrived quite late, shortly before sunset, and had to do the rest of the rescue in the dark.

According to Urubko, the Pakistani helicopter pilot risked his life and dropped them off at a very “small path” just under Camp 1 at around 4,800m — saving them the very long climb over the glacier from basecamp. Urubko and Bielecki climbed 1,200m at night and came across Revol at around 6,100m in a severely frostbitten state. In an interview with the AFP during her recovery, Revol, spoke about hallucinating the night she had to spend perched in a crevice on the mountain.

After spending the night on the mountain with her rescuers, Revol was brought down to the base camp where she received immediate medical attention before being flown to a hospital in Skardu. She was flown to Islamabad shortly afterwards and admitted to a private hospital. As she preferred to be treated in her country, she was soon flown to France where she received the rest of her treatment at a hospital in the French Alps.

Unfortunately, Mackiewicz was considered beyond help and had to be left behind. This was his seventh attempt at summiting Nanga Parbat. He now lies eternally with the mountain.

UPS AND DOWNS AT K2

Climbing the Godwin Austin or K2 in the winter is the final frontier for elite mountaineers hoping to get a ‘first summit’ on an 8,000er. One of the pioneers of winter mountaineering Krysztof Wielicki is heading a team of elite mountaineers to hopefully summit K2 in the winters. Mountaineers have been trying for over 20 years without success.

Turn by turn they have been making their acclimatisation climbs, waiting and hoping for an opportunity to push for the summit since December. Unfortunately, in both the Himalayas and the Karakoram, strong winds have prevailed, preventing any possibility of a summit.

While some members have had to leave (mostly due to injury), the majority of the team has remained intact. But as the winter season has come to a close in the Himalayas (it lasts till mid-March in the Karakoram) time is running out.

Perhaps that was the pressure Russian-Polish mountaineer Denis Urubko felt when he decided to go rogue on K2 on February 24. He left base camp to do a solo summit without informing anyone and without a radio. He was met by expedition members Maciej Bedrejczuk and Marcin Kaczkan at Camp 1 who related that he refused to take a radio or even speak to the expedition leader. Wielikci, the expedition leader, said that he was very “hurt” by Urubko’s unwillingness to speak to him. He and Urubko have known each other for many years and they were together at K2 in 2003, as well, at a failed winter expedition.

On February 25, Bedrejczuk and Kaczkan were headed towards Camp 3 where they were also hoping to sight Urubko and know in what condition/state he is in. On February 26, it was announced that Urubko had decided to abandon his push for the summit and would return to base camp and go home. The expedition accepted his resignation, as the expedition leader communicated there was no place for him in the team after his behaviour.

To put a rest to rumours circulating regarding the treatment meted out to him, Weilicki issued the following statement through their spokesperson, Michal Leksinski: “The information appearing on the web that I did not let Denis, after his solo summit push attempt, use the wifi in basecamp is true, because Denis sent critical information about our expedition and its participants to the media and I did not see a reason for him to continue this. It is not true, however, that I prevented Denis from contacting family and loved ones. He received the possibility of telephone calls (for free), which he used. I personally notified Denis’s return to the base to his wife, Olga, [and he received] the full help of the organisers in descent to Skardu, care of our agent and all air tickets on the way back.”

According to reports, the team hopes to make a push for the summit on March 5, if weather permits.

The writer is a member of staff
She tweets @madeehasyed

Published in Dawn, EOS, March 4th, 2018