FALLING! A nearly vertical ramp. I flail desperately with my ice axe, but it bounces off impenetrable rock and the abyss below rushes at me like a black hole that sucks everything into its void.
I thrash desperately, clawing at the thin covering of soft, wet snow—my only hope of stopping the fall. The bottom of the rock ramp is just metres away, and below that is a vertical drop of over a thousand metres. Still sliding, I kick my feet out wide, using my legs to catch more of the snow beneath me. It’s a risk—if I build up too much snow underneath me, I’ll topple over backwards and lose all control. But it’s a risk worth taking—if I don’t stop right now, I am dead anyway.
Nothing. Still sliding. A thought flashes through my mind: Christ, it’s all over …
Then I sense the slightest slowing, almost unnoticeable. The snow beneath me forms a small wedge between my legs. The buildup between my arms gives me enough balance so I don’t topple backwards. Slowing, slowing … stopped.
Temporarily safe, my body remains in overdrive. I gasp so fast that I literally scream for breath. Sucking in great frozen lungfuls, I cough violently as the cold, dry air tears at my throat. My heart pounds so hard my chest hurts.
I latch on to the mountain like a drowning man clutches a plank. Get yourself together. Get control. Ever so gradually the tension eases—my heart slows, my reeling head steadies, my gasping reverts to simple panting. I cough again and spit thick, bloody sputum into the ice in front of me. My face drops into the mess, but I don’t care. Breathing is all that matters.
I am still alive. Still. For this has not been an isolated slip that nearly ended badly, it’s been my descent for the last hour. A frantic, desperate series of uncontrolled leaps of faith. No, not faith, but hope. Hope that I will stop in time. Hope that I will slow before I pick up so much speed that I cannot. It is a hope born of hopelessness, as there is no other way down. I can stay up here and die in the thin air, or take my chances.
I am unprepared for this. I’ve spent too long at high altitude. I’m tired and dehydrated, exhausted from what has already been eighteen hours of climbing above 8000 metres without supplementary oxygen. I’m way too inexperienced to have any right to be here. This has been my first successful 8000-metre summit, and it is on the majestic but notorious K2, which sits on the border between Pakistan and China. I can already hear the veterans laugh: ‘You climbed K2 for your first 8000-metre summit? Are you crazy?’ Maybe.
All that’s on my mind right now, though, is survival. I’ve already seen the results of a K2 expedition gone wrong. He’s lying frozen and lifeless at our Camp 4, and I’m struggling simply to get down to the relative safety of that high-altitude cemetery. The mountain has turned nasty, and the slope we’d climbed earlier in the day is now virtually unable to be down-climbed, because the softening snow gives no purchase and the smooth rock underneath it is as hard as steel. There is simply nothing to hold on to.
Just to my right is the end of the rope that we’d anchored to the face earlier this morning on our way up. We’d only been carrying 40 metres and had placed it on the most dangerous part of the climb, a traverse under a giant cliff of ice. My hand is shaking, more from adrenaline than from the piercing cold, as I reach out, ever so carefully, to clip a sling to it, fearful that even the slightest movement will dislodge me. I slump gratefully to let it take my weight, the security like a mother’s comforting embrace.
My desire to sleep is almost overwhelming and I must snap my mind back to consciousness. With the safety of the rope I traverse across to another steep chute known as the Bottleneck, which leads down to a broad ice face below. Unclipping from the rope, I carefully kick each step and place the ice pick as though my life depends on it, which it most certainly does. I find that I am talking myself through every movement: ‘Focus … Look for a good handhold. Don’t relax now. Focus. Check that rock—is it loose? Get rid of it. Okay, step down. Easy … Easy. Okay, get the pick in.’
This isn’t a sign of madness but a habit that I’ve kept up throughout my climbing career. It is when you are descending from a summit, exhausted beyond comprehension, that you must think the most clearly. Having put every bit of energy into the ascent, many climbers have nothing left in reserve when they turn to go down again. So they relax, take shortcuts, make mistakes. And die.
I tell myself I will not relax, take shortcuts or make mistakes, and with every downward step, the angle of the slope lessens, until at last I am able to face out and walk the rest of the way back down to Camp 4. It is surreal descending these slopes in the dark of night, alone on the massive mountain face, having just survived the most dangerous experience of my life. The summit was good, but survival is even better, and I luxuriate in the feel of every breath, the warmth of my down suit, the energy of life.
I am in good spirits as I approach the tent. It is 11.30 p.m. and I’ve been on the go for almost twenty hours. Two of my teammates, Anatoli and Peter, descended from the summit ahead of me, and as I reach the tent I hope that they’ve melted enough snow on the stove to give me the drink I desperately need.
There is rustling in the tent and I hear Anatoli’s voice: ‘Peter, is that you?’
‘No, it’s Andrew,’ I reply, a little confused.
Anatoli’s shocked face immediately appears through the tent door. I stop moving, a sense of dread suddenly upon me.
Peter had left the summit with Anatoli. You can’t get lost on this route. If he’d stopped to rest, I’d have seen him in the bright moonlight. If I haven’t passed him, then he is no longer on the mountain. We scan the slopes above us, but there is no sign of another human life.
So exhausted that it takes me twenty minutes just to remove my crampons, I crawl into the tent, hoping that I’d somehow passed Peter as he rested. But I know deep within me that the worst has happened.
I am wrong, however. The worst is just beginning.