K2_ Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain - Ed Viesturs [154]
The expedition was organized by the Eddie Bauer company. By now, I’m part of a team helping design a new line of technical gear, called First Ascent. Showcasing the products on Everest was to be the final stage of the company’s official launch of that line of products.
It was an honor for me to be part of the Eddie Bauer campaign. The primary draw for me in returning to Everest, however, was the challenge of trying to climb to 29,035 feet again. People often ask when I’m going to quit climbing. My response is “I’ll quit when I no longer enjoy it, or can’t do it anymore.”
Everest was as crowded as ever last spring. My biggest problem on the mountain, besides the usual spells of bad weather, was the traffic congestion up high on the South Col route. But I bided my time through late April and early May, and finally the weather forecast seemed favorable for a summit push. It’s always a bit of a gamble to leave base camp, with high camp still three days away, and to time it just right for a summit attempt. We had originally hoped to go for the top on May 17, thereby beating the crowds. But May 17 was a bust, with extremely high winds and near-zero visibility. So we waited in our tents on the South Col all day and night. And as we waited, many other climbers arrived. We knew the traffic would be heavy the next day.
Finally, at 11:00 P.M. on May 18, four teammates and I left the South Col. It was not only pretty crowded on the route, but it was quite cold—somebody said minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit. Even so, we made good time, reaching the Balcony at 3:00 A.M., the summit at 8:00 A.M.
By the time the sun rose, it was a nice day, slightly breezy but warm enough and gloriously clear. The descent was uneventful, and we got back to the South Col at 1:00 P.M. As I wrote on my website, “So, 14-hour round trip. My seventh ascent of the mountain and more than likely my last ascent of the mountain. It was a great place to revisit, to come back to Everest, but I don’t have the desire anymore to come back and climb the mountain for the eighth time.”
On Everest in spring 2009, I made a choice I’d never resorted to before, which was to use supplemental oxygen even though I had no client to guide. I explained the decision on my website: “Knowing that the next day would be rather cold and windy, as a safety issue I felt it would be better to stay with the team and use supplemental oxygen. So it was more based on safety, and sticking with my group. So I kind of compromised my ascent but it still worked out well.” It was gratifying later to learn that the people following our expedition online uniformly praised my decision, rather than needling me about compromising my purist style.
Climbing Everest again seemed reasonable. But there’s no way I’d ever try K2 again. Objectively, it’s not that severe a climb, at least on the Abruzzi Ridge. It’s gnarly, and it’s not easy to descend in bad conditions. It’s colder than Everest, because it’s situated a full eight degrees of latitude farther north, the equivalent of the distance between Charleston, South Carolina, and New York City. On Everest, every spring you can usually count on a stable window of clear weather, when the high jet-stream winds start to get pushed away by the approaching monsoon. But the monsoon doesn’t reach the Karakoram. Instead, you have to throw the dice with the weather. There’s no guarantee that you’ll get a single prolonged spell of good days all summer.
During the climbing campaigns of 1987, 1988, and 1989, no fewer than fifty-three climbers reached the summit of Mount Everest. In that same three-year period, although fifteen different expeditions, including some of the best mountaineers in the world, attacked K2, not a single person got to the summit. I’m not surprised.
Many climbers have made repeat ascents of Everest, including me with my seven. The record holder, Apa