Daily Times

T.G. Montgomery surveyed K2 as a part of Kashmir-China border demarcation during the British Survey of India in 1856. The colonials feared the Russian expansion southwards. K stands for Karakoram Range to the northeast of the Himalayas on the Pak-China border and 2 is the mountain number allotted by the surveyor.

“I actually think it’s very poetic because it sums up a mountain that is very bare, very austere, a perfect pyramid. It is the very epitome of a mountain”, Simon Worral states. Unlike “Everest” or “Matterhorn”, there is no romance in its name. It is deadly mathematical.

Gilkey Memorial, a cairn with the names of those climbers who lost their lives during expeditions reminds the cost of this conquest. The memorial was put up in 1953 to mark the death of Art Gilkey, a member of the 1953 American expedition to K2. The Savage Mountain by Dr. Charles S. Houston is a remarkable first-hand publication expounding the trill, bonding, and enterprise of this expedition.

George Irving Bell attempted K2 in 1953. After losing his toes to frostbite, he famously said: “It’s a savage mountain that tries to kill you”. It is a ferocious climb with the highest death rate of 32%. Scary glaciers, thrashing wind storms, icefalls, avalanches, and rock-falls push the spirit, endurance, and technique to their last limits.

Climbing at the cost of life proves the limitless grit and complexity of the human mind. The mystery in gazing upon the unobstructed horizons is simply adorable

The famous climbing hosts in the East are Mount Everest, 8,848 meters, straddles Nepal and China. K2 (8,611 meters) in Pakistan, Kangchenjunga (8,586 meters) and Lhotse (8,516 meters) in Nepal.

Jase Wilson, a PhD researcher in Tourism Studies, stationed at the base camp of Everest, interviewed several expeditioners to discover why do they do it? He concludes that it is not tourism. It is a passion, an obsession for distinction, a quest for self-recognition compelling a climber to gamble his own existence.

How one can be so insensitive about life? George Mallory asked himself about one of his dangerous expeditions in Alps “Have we vanquished an enemy?”, he replied “none but ourselves”. Climbing discovers an accomplished self from human nothingness. The climber dialogues with the ultimate in a divine parlance. He whispers the truth, bit-by-bit, nerve-by-nerve, to calm, gigantic, and an unbecomingly stable host. He is a minimalist. All he expects is oxygen to breathe, some friction under the footholds, some warmth to keep the blood a liquid. He enjoys the luxury in the most organic form.

Charlie Houston attempted K2 twice in 1938 and 1953. He coined the term “The Brotherhood of the Rope”- a sensational interdependence between the climbers. More than belays and carabiners, the group planning, strength, and control matter. Climbing reminds the psychology of human relationships. It is a brotherhood in the extreme atrocity.

While standing on the South Summit of Everest, Chris Bombardier with hemophilia lost his spine. He climbed for 10 hours in the sub-zero winds. He left with a sip of water and no food. Every step was scratching his lungs. He looked up and saw the knife-edge ridge of rock and ice leading to the Hillary Step. On one side he can see 8,000ft down to Camp 2 in Nepal and on the other, 11,000ft down into Tibet.

He turned to Tashi, their Sirdar (head Sherpa) and said, “I think I’m done.” Without hesitation, Tashi replied, “Chris, you can do this! You are here for a reason. You have a mission and a purpose. You can do this!” He started walking towards the ridgeline and as he passed Chris, Tashi took one of the carabiners tethered to his harness, clipped it through his carabiner on the fixed line, and kept walking.

“So many emotions flooded through me in that moment, the first one being fear. But once I started up the ridge, I thought of an item that I had carried in my pocket every day of this journey: a flag signed by members of the hemophilia community in Nepal. The flag reminded me that Tashi is right – this climb wasn’t just about my own personal journey, but one of an entire global community”, Chris writes.

“The unforgettable favor of a fellow climber would be my snapshot with Pakistan’s Flag at the summit. It is an explainable passion and pride” said by Muhammad Ali Sadpara of Pakistan-last seen on Friday with John Snorri, 47, of Iceland, and Juan Pablo Mohr, 33, of Chile, around noon at what is considered the most difficult part of the K2 summit: The Bottleneck, a steep, narrow gully just 300 meters short of the place where he anticipated the snapshot.

Climbing at the cost of life proves the limitless grit and complexity of the human mind. The mystery in gazing upon the unobstructed horizons is simply adorable. It elevates the spirit, breaks down the shackles, purifies the thought process after sinking into the resonance of nature. Putting the magnanimity of mountains under feet introduces to a higher self with all its ingenuity and strength.

The writer is an academic, columnist, and a Public Policy Researcher