Thieves, Liars and Mountaineers by Mark Horrell

Author:Mark Horrell [Horrell, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Travel, Asia, mountaineering, Mountain Climbing, Sports & Outdoors, Pakistan, India
Amazon: B006ETE4WQ
Published: 2011-11-25T14:00:00+00:00

35. Controversy on Nanga Parbat

Wednesday 15 July, 2009 – Gasherbrum Base Camp, Pakistan

More information is filtering through to us about the deaths on Nanga Parbat, though much of it is still hearsay. It seems the Korean woman, Go Mi-Sun, died on descent from the summit from a fall in jetstream winds, but it now seems there may have been more controversial circumstances surrounding the accident.

“There's trouble on Nanga Parbat,” Phil says, emerging from his tent. “It looks like the Austrian team pulled the ropes on the way down.”

“That's outrageous,” I reply.

But it seems Phil has more sympathy with the Austrians. “I'm fed up with the Koreans. F--- ‘em!” he says. “They're the only team here who've contributed nothing to the fixed ropes.”

It's true that both our team Altitude Junkies, and the Jagged Globe team, who between us have been doing almost all the rope fixing on Gasherbrum, have given the other teams plenty of warning that we'll pull the ropes down after we've finished with them unless other teams are prepared to contribute with equipment or financially. Everybody at Base Camp has chipped in apart from the Korean team who have been waiting, coincidentally, for the very same Miss Go who died on Nanga Parbat to arrive and make a decision as their expedition leader. It's possible that the Austrian team gave the same warning on Nanga Parbat, but it wasn't heeded by the Koreans, who climbed the fixed ropes anyway without having contributed, but this is speculation on our part. Even if it turns out to be true, pulling the ropes down while there are still climbers above who may be relying on them for descent, is knowingly putting lives at extreme risk.

“I fell three times descending the Banana Ridge the other day,” I reply. “If somebody had removed the fixed ropes while I was still at Camp 2, I'd be dead.”

“Dude, you would've arrested yourself before you'd fallen off the face,” says Phil. “You might've shat yourself, but you wouldn't have died. There's nothing wrong with that. I've shat myself on a mountain many times before.”

“You shat yourself on the way up,” I point out.

“Yeah, but that was because I was ill, not through fear,” says Phil.

As the conversation evolves from the serious to the banal and we move onto a discussion about the occasions Phil got caught short on mountains, I sense the moment has gone, but this has highlighted an age old problem with commercial mountaineering peaks for which this latest incident is a variant on a common theme. In the days when difficult mountains were only climbed by experienced climbers prepared to take their own risks, things were much simpler. But when a number of climbers of differing levels of experience, and accepting differing levels of risk, particularly in terms of safety precautions, are on a mountain together, who is responsible when things go wrong? And should people be competent enough to be able to descend when the safety precautions aren't there? If the answer to this is yes then I, for one, should not be climbing Gasherbrum.

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