No Way Down, Life and Death On K2 (2010) by Bowley Graham

Author:Bowley, Graham [Graham, Bowley,]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2011-01-14T19:19:39.562000+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

3 a.m.

Marco Confortola had waded alone along the sloping snowfield from the top of K2. After more than an hour, he had seen headlamps in a line a few dozen yards below him and had followed behind them. He thought they belonged to the Korean team but their faces were obscured by the bright spotlights of their headlamps, which cast hazy penumbrae in the dark twilight.

Near the steep slope before the lip of the glacier, Confortola drew closer to the other mountaineers. He saw they were from the Korean team, though there was another climber with them who turned out to be the Irishman Gerard McDonnell.

Where are the ropes?

McDonnell shrugged.

The group of climbers searched for the route that would lead them around the crusted edge of the giant serac onto the Traverse but to their mounting frustration they could not find any sign of the ropes.

The end of the snowfield curved down abruptly in front of them, a slope of 30 or 40 degrees. Confortola dragged his tired body to the left and then back to the right on the top of the steep slope, willing himself to find the ropes. The fixed lines had to be down there somewhere, though neither he nor McDonnell felt sure that they were on the same path they had followed on the way up onto the snowfield.

And then, when the Flying Jump team lurched ahead toward the lip of the glacier and one after the other went over the top, Confortola held McDonnell back. There was something about the look of the snow that made him uneasy.

Both men knew the risks of staying out overnight. It was ten o’clock. They were exhausted. The night was big and black around them. There was no moon and it was fiercely cold, minus 20, easy. Confortola’s altimeter wristwatch said they were at 27,500 feet. They had no tent or sleeping bags, no extra food or oxygen. They knew their lives probably depended on descending quickly through the cold to Camp Four.

But they were on a steep slope and they had no idea where they were or where they were going. The lamp at Camp Four winked about half a mile below them, clearly but beyond their reach. Confortola’s instinct told him it was no use looking for a way down anymore. They were better off waiting for daylight, when they could see where they were climbing.

“Let’s stay here,” he said.

He wanted to be certain that what lay beneath their boots was firm snow and not a crevasse. In addition, there were constant avalanches from these heavy snowfields, big, powerful falls that would crush them if they got caught up in one. Sure enough, minutes later Confortola heard a roll of thunder coming from the serac in front of them, then distant cries and shouts from beneath it. Then silence.

What was that?

I don’t know.

Confortola wasn’t entirely sure that what he had heard was an avalanche or ice collapsing from the serac but now he felt convinced they were right to stay where they were.

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