K2_ Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain - Ed Viesturs [138]
In K2: Triumph and Tragedy, Curran pondered the enigma posed by the German expedition leader:
An old man whose life had been dominated by mountains yet who had never been able to go above Base Camp; a man who despite his organisational experience, attracted feuds and controversy on almost every venture; and a man whose whole concept of leadership and power seemed to be profoundly at odds with the people who continually placed themselves under his command. Did he, I wondered, actually enjoy the mountains in the same way that I did? Did he enjoy the company of climbers?
Kukuczka apparently shared that disenchantment. About the rest of the motley international team, he later wrote, “Unfortunately, most of the members did not show enough sporting spirit to attempt even K2’s normal route. I couldn’t believe this since on Polish expeditions we always try to attempt something different.”
Kukuczka had a right to his national pride. Starting in the 1970s, if any country’s climbers consistently tried really hard new routes and pushed them to the limit, it was Poles, despite their scrawny expedition budgets. They were and still are especially adept at winter ascents on the highest mountains.
In early June 1986, a team of six—Kukuczka, Piotrowski, three Swiss, and a German—started working their way up the south face. The climbing was so difficult and so scary that one by one all three Swiss and the German dropped out. Not until July 7 did the Poles launch their two-man alpine-style assault. To go as light as possible, they carried only four pitons and a 100-foot rope! Kukuczka led every pitch.
This was by far the hardest climbing that had been performed to that date on K2, and it took its toll on those tough men. Kukuczka spent a whole day mastering a single desperate pitch. The men had accidently dropped a gas canister, so their stove was useless. The first night, all they had to drink was a small cup of water from snow melted over a candle.
On the second day, economizing further, they left behind their tent, sleeping bags, sleeping pads, and even food. All they carried was a pair of bivouac sacks and their cameras. In doing so, they made a commitment to go up and over the top, then descend the Abruzzi Ridge, instead of downclimbing the difficult line they had ascended. That was a bold yet somewhat desperate move. By late afternoon, Kukuczka and Piotrowski reached the summit snowfield, where they actually came upon the empty packets of powdered soup left by Maurice Barrard. Kukuczka reached the summit of his twelfth 8,000er at 6:25 P.M., Piotrowski a bit later.
Descending with a single headlamp, the men had to halt when the bulb abruptly burned out. They dug a hole in the snow at around 27,000 feet and settled in for a second bivouac, “shaking with cold,” Kukuczka later wrote, “until the morning.”
Growing weaker, desperately thirsty, the men were able to descend only 1,300 feet of the Abruzzi Ridge on July 9. They worried about losing their way on a route they had never ascended, since they had no good knowledge of its landmarks. They endured another bivouac, a night of “absolute torture.”
By July 10, the two men had gone almost three days without food or water, and their bivouac sacks were full of holes. But that day they spotted the tents of a Korean party far below, and so knew they were on route. Below the Shoulder, at about 24,500 feet, very near the slope from which Art Gilkey had been swept to his death in 1953, in Kukuczka’s telling, “When I asked Tadeusz for the rope, I discovered that he had forgotten to bring it with him from the bivouac.”
Rappelling was no longer an option, and the men had not yet reached the top of the fixed ropes. In their