Only Angels Have Wings (K2 2021)

I pour a bloody red wine into a clean glass, I stare at the green trees in my home garden and life means more to me than it used to. The sun’s rays are slowly losing power, the sun is slowly saying goodbye, just for a short night. The events in the valley mean nothing more than the daily boring rhythm, but in the world I left recently, the truth is completely different. The glass is empty, and the thoughts are increasingly similar to those who don’t want to leave my head and are still where John and I said goodbye. In a world unfit for life, getting there is heavier than landing on the moon, we spoke the last few words. “I will tray to cross it,” he said, pulling oxygen strongly from the half-empty cylinder twice in a short sentence. I knew he was too tired, he had reached the altitude of 8000 m too slowly. I had enough time to inspect at least two hundred meters of the crack before his arrival, along with Sherpa Timba, and found that the best place to cross was exactly the one I had shown him, but the gap was too wide for me to could skip. Sherpa decided that the conditions were too difficult and that he would return to the third camp. John and I were left alone, lost in an endless moment, staring across the crack at -55 degrees at full moon and observing the infamous bottle neck and the top of the mountain on the other side of the split world. Tiny ice crystals of deadly cold air gleamed together with the stars in the light beams of the headlights. Somewhere out of the darkness, the voice of past experiences reminded me that the problems are only temporary, and the glory is eternal, and yet we could not move on. We stayed on the edge of eternity, and we decided on our own. John was brave enough to choose eternity. “I can’t cross it, I am going down, good luck,” was the last thing I spoke to him that night and I was left without wings.

I knew I was saying goodbye not only to John, but also to success, because success is always on the other side of fear, on the other side of infinitely deep and dark crack, so it’s not for everyone, so it wasn’t for me, so all of a sudden we were no longer a team who can work together. The long weeks of two consecutive seasons of waiting and freezing at the base under the mountain we spent together, became more and more like a burning and unwanted memory with each meter I dropped, which I wanted to get out of my head and just scurry towards the sweet surrender. With each meter lower on the mountain, the feeling of defeat was greater and with each meter I was farther than anything I wanted at the time. I had dreams so big, that I was afraid of them, and yet I was on my way to making them a reality. I lived those dreams until that moment, then they died and with them a part of me.
 

So high on the mountain, almost eight kilometers above sea level, it was just John and me at the time. The camp 3 left almost ten of us, but they all soon began to return, some due to low temperatures hovering around fifty degrees below zero, others due to the failure of respiratory regulators that did not withstand such cold. I soon saw a tiny light, in the depths below me, it was a Pakistani Ali Sakbara, an almost old friend with whom I had stood together two years ago on top of a mountain that then placed him among the mountaineering stars. Nearly two hours of infinitely hard steps and a third of the liquefied life in the chilled cylinder, sticking out of his backpack separated him from John, who was freezing above us at the time, somewhere along that glacial fissure and burdening his sleepy brain with the question of how to cross it. Ali Sakbara leaves the camp 3 two hours behind John because he felt much stronger and anticipated catching him somewhere up to the height where John and I broke up. I briefly explained to him that I was coming back because of the crack and that I had left John there. With eyes, I no longer knew, he stared at me, hoping he understood me and, “Ok” was the last I heardfrom under a breathing mask lined with a thick layer of shining ice. I no longer had the strength to interpret his answer, which still, along with the breathing noise, disturbs my ear canals. Here in the home garden, when I look at the outlines of the Julians, the sharp lines drawn by God’s hands, I understand it differently, perhaps better, or perhaps Ali even wished I hadn’t understood it. He, too, was on his way to the stars, where only the fearless go, only those who have never feared life, only those who are willing to get wings. We broke the bond of gaze and fixed our eyes on the darkness, each in his own direction. Half an hour later, Pablo stepped out of the darkness in front of me, without a headlamp, the moonlight was enough for him to lay his frostbitten feet in the wake of his predecessors. “Hi Tomas,” he uttered very slowly, “You are going down?”, Sounded almost warm and distinct in Spanish English. Pablo didn’t have a mask, he was a superhumanly strong alpinist and a professional mountain runner, determined to beat K2 in the winter without extra oxygen. For him, fighting death in gloves was meaningless. For him, life, without escaping death, was without meaning. For him, death was also meaningless if he could not invite her to the dance. “Yes, I am going down,” I had to admit my defeat out loud again, we touched with our fists and the demons of the night were with me again. Wandering again and automatically shifting legs, thoughts between dreams and reality, an inhuman struggle with heavy sleep that invitedme to the other side.
 

I’m glad today, that I didn’t fall asleep then. I’m glad today, that I still don’t have wings, like all three I last saw that night, almost eight miles high. It’s nice to feel the sun’s rays on my facial skin today that still doesn’t feel the touch of my fingers. It’s nice to still have all my fingers, even though I can’t feel the skin on my face yet. It’s nice to hear the voices of my children and wife, to whom I’ll otherwise never be able to explain everything the mountain has taught me and how nice it is that, at least I hope, they will never be able to understand it. Before I returned to the the camp 3 at sunrise, I met Sajid. The son of the great Ali Sakbara complained to me about the malfunction of the regulator and told him to follow the trinity.
 

I crawled into the tent and heard Noel, who called me from the next tent. Noel Hannah, a mountain guide living in South Africa who has already conquered eleven 8000 ers and stood on the top of Everest nine times, decided last night to stay on the camp3 due to fatigue and cold legs. On July 21, 2018, he was also part of the expedition that allowed us to climb to the top of the second highest mountain in the world. This time we shared a tent for two months and a bond created between us, will probably keep us together for the rest of our days. ”Thanks God you are back Thomas. I was woried obout you a bit, you know, ”he laughed from his sleeping bag. “We have to go down, I have enough of this fuckin mountain ”, meant as a command, but at that moment I couldn’t even move anymore.
 

Sherpa Pasang, started making me tea. He was my sherpa, but because of the frostbite he got the night before, he decided to stay on the camp 3, so Timba joined me on the climb, initially helping Noel. “I need at least an hour rest” , I consoled myself in my mind. I knew that we had to withdraw from the mountain the same day, because the weather window was closing and already in the afternoon the winds at a speed of at least thirty kilometers per hour, which means at least seventy degrees below zero cooling effect, would again make it impossible to stay on this height. ”Thomas, are you back? Fuck Thomas, I thought you were gone, ”sad Colin, a young American. Strong and fast as a horse, he was the first to reach the camp 3 day before and froze for two hours without a tent as he waited for two sherpas to bring the tent. At the time, he really had a reason to curse, he hypothermized his body and the toes became foreign to him. He was used to the cold and the situation we faced was supposed to be almost home to him. He is the youngest man on the planet who conquered all seven highest peaks and crossed the Arctic and Antarctic independently, without support. He crossed Antarctica in fifty-two days, setting a speed record as well. Despite the achievements that place him among the most resilient representatives of our kind, he decided to finish the climb on camp 3, because he could not warm his feet all night. There was not enough space in the tents for such a maneuver, and we had a lot of problems with gas burners, which are  supposed to be tested at forty degrees below zero.
 

A dry cough on the other side of the shaking tent wall, sobering me up with a slight nap, was familiar to everyone in the group. Tamara Lunder, the Italian mountaineering star who won winter Nanga Parbat, has been ill for most of the expedition. She, too, decided to complete the ascent at the third altitude camp. She was climbing without extra oxygen, so the cold hit her a little harder. I also heard the voices of others.
 

German Bernard also returned to the camp three in the middle of the night. He gave up due to regulator problems, as well as his Sherpa. After returning to the base, he called me to his tent and and asked me to help him take off his shoes. It wasn’t entirely clear to me at first why, but it took my breath away when he showed me his feet. The deathly gray colorindicated severe frostbite, his foot was frozen, numb, and a thick tear of regret glistened in Bernard's eyes. He was taken from the base by helicopter, two days after the descent. Bernard is already recovering at home and only because of the fate he is still with us.
 

Even the Bulgarian Atanas, who was no stranger to the eight-thousanders, who already had eleven in his pocket, was hanging out somewhere and preparing a backpack for the descent. Frankly, he wasn’t closest to my heart, his attitude towards sherpas was sometimes offensive, so we didn’t talk much. We first met at the base under Kanchenjunga in 2019, that time on camp 3,I heard him for the last time. On the way down, somewhere below the “Black Pyramid,” he made a small mistake and slipped a kilometer deeper. I heard they found it somewhere at the height of the ABC , at several ends. The next day at the base, I stood for a few moments at the big stupor, where we had a “Puja” and also prayed a line for him to get wings, too.
 

Greek mountaineering elder Antonio was, as always, the loudest, most often when it came to self-praise. He was supposed to lead quite a few national expeditions in his career, but I could never get rid of the feeling that he was a man who didn’t belong in the place we were at the time.
 

There was one very important man missing, a great athlete and physically fit alpinist Sergio. His mountaineering successes could fill books, they may one day, but he himself will not know about it. Already on the first rotation, as we were descending from the second altitude camp, it slid towards the foot of the mountain and stopped at almost the same place as the later Bulgarian. The injuries were too severe for him to survive the fall. His body was like a crushed mass, which we wrapped as respectfully as possible in a sleeping bag and tied tightly with a rope. We prepared him for the last helicopter ride to Scardu. I’m sure he watched the whole expedition somewhere above us and made sure no more of us went among the angels. In the cold company in the camp that morning, there were also sherpas, hoping that we would all get at least a little lower as soon as possible, to the deuce, where the change of weather will no longer endanger our lives.
 

I can hardly remember how I got to base camp on 5.2.2021. For more than twelve hours I descended continuously on the torn and frozen ropes, among which only some were replaced on the ascent, all the others miraculously endured and defied all the influences of the environment for at least a year. I also don’t know how late in the evening, in solid darkness, I was able to find my way through a maze of huge ice cubes on then glacier under the ABC. I walked the path a few times, but always in daylight. I arrived at the base camp just before midnight, the first of us to come back to life. I was unable to speak, I could only make out the questions and greetings of the staff from the moving lips of the smiling faces. I remember calling home, talking for a few minutes to Melita, the only angel left by my side. I fell asleep at the table, and in the morning I woke up in my tent, probably being carried there by sherpas and wrapped in a sleeping bag.
 

The morning at the base was bright, the tent walls looked wooden, the air was inaudible this time and I had the feeling that I was alone in the world. The sharp sound of the kitchen burner called me back to life, and the squirrel laughter of Sukra, the miracle cooking boy, invited me to freshly baked eggs. I slowly began to move my body and was happy to find that I was still alive and still feeling everything I could see, even the toes that had been freezing in high-altitude shoes for four days. I was alone at breakfast, there were no people from the mountain yet, or at least they hadn’t gotten to breakfast yet. In my mind, I was making a plan of how I would slowly leave the base and head back across the glacier, taking the first step on the way home, where I hadn’t been in so long. I had already left it on December 19th last year. Leader Sherpa Dawa, the youngest man to win fourteen eight-thousanders without oxygen, and his assistant Arnold Kostner, a man who had led as many as sixty-five expeditions to the Himalayas in his career, joined me, each with his own metal cup of coffee. Their face was not as smiling as the night before when I came back from the mountain, it was gloomy and worried and I knew everything was not as it should be. The day passed in anticipation of at least one encouraging news about Snorri, Ali and Pablo. All three were lost on the mountain, with no contact with the others and no one knew where they might be. Dawa was circling the base all the time, clutching the radio station in his hands, and Arnold was losing his voice in the big tent, constantly trying to make contact with anyone on the mountain.
 

Noel also came from the mountain, which I sincerely cheered on, followed by the others, fortunately all but three. The events of that day could only mean one thing, there will be no more coming down, even if we do anything. Oxygen supplies had already been exausted at night, and if they could not return at least to the camp 3, during that time, they would never return. Even the next night, I still hoped John would show up at the base or at least call from one of the altitude camps, but the mountain was silent.
 

The next morning was even quieter and no one ate breakfast. All of us who were on the mountain,especially Timba and I, who were the highest, knew that the probability of survival after this time was almost nil. Death is the best invention of life, it reminds us that we must live, and yet it is sometimes difficult to accept. Even Dawa and Arnold quietly came to terms with the fate of leaving three more, perhaps the best among us.
 

The expedition, about which I could otherwise have written a book or made a film, was, from another point of view, historic and one of the most successful expeditions in the history of the Himalayas, as ten sherpas in the first weather window conquered the summit of K2 in winter. The mountain was the last of the 8,000-meter peaks, the peak of which, until this year's success, had not yet been conquered during the meteorological winter, although several national expeditions with a stellar and professional mountaineers tried to do so. Together with John Snorri and Sherpa Mingma G, I also tried to conquer the summit last winter, which otherwise served us with much worse weather like this winter, and above all with the feeling that the expedition was interrupted deliberately by Mingma G, who, however, won the summit this year, along with the Sherp group. The expedition was also marked by considerable media attention, and social media served up a pile of information that was false and unreliable, the result of media activity by people wanted to promote themselfs.
 

The fate of the trio remains a mystery for now. Dozens of different ideas were born about what could happen to them and what was the reason for their disappearance. One of them, who was otherwise supported by Ali's son Sajid, says that there were no fixed ropes above the camp four and that the three of them set out to climb through the Botl neck in alpine style. In doing so, I would question whether Sajid ever came into contact with the trio on the mountain on the last ascent, as he was at least two hours behind Snorri and at temperatures around fifty degrees below zero, Snorri would find it very difficult to wait at 8000m . I myself, was with Snorri at this altitude for much less time, and I was quickly approaching a point of no return to life.
 

The idea is supported by the public accusation of Sherpas, by Nazir Sabir, an important Pakistani and mountaineering legend, who says that the Sherpas who conquered the summit cut the ropes through the Bottle neck and thus contributed to the death of the trio. Personally, I know the gentleman well, as he was carrying out the logistics of my first ascent to K2 when I conquered the summit. He is a highly respected and sensible man who would not invent facts for the sake of media attention. It is important to point out the fact, that the sherpas used old ropes in the ascent, just like everyone we followed, and that in this case it is not a purely alpine-style ascent.
 

If we conclude that there were no ropes through the Bottle neck, and that they were not cut on the way down, the question naturally arises as to whether the Sherpas conquered the summit at all. Returning in alpine style along the slopes of blue ice with a slope of 60 to 70 degrees at an altitude of 8300 meters, seems not only to me, but also to the rest of the mountaineering community, especially in such a short time, impossible.
 

Also, the fact, that two sherpas waited at the top of the mountain, at an altitude of 8611 meters, at a temperature of -50 to -60 degrees, for almost two hours on the other members of the group to conquer the summit together, highlights the rather amazing fact of human endurance .
 

It is also important to point out that John Snorri wanted to jump to the top in the same weather window as the Sherp group, but received information directly from Mingma G that Sherpas would not go to the top in that weather window, but only up to camp 3 to check the equipment and tents. The same information was also confirmed by Snorri's wife Lina. If Snorri had jumped the summit in the same weather window, he would probably have conquered it, as Sherpas supposedly managed to do the same, and probably returned to the valley as well.
 

A group of climbers trying to conquer the summit in another, much shorter weather window and in which I was also, had a huge amount of equipment problems. At least five regulators on our respiratory systems broke down, which meant that the climber had to turn back to the valley immediately, the oxygen cylinders were filled with very low pressure, our cookers at the height of the second base camp no longer worked, which meant that we did not have water for such important hydration at altitude. None of these problems were experienced by the group of ten sherpas who were supposed to conquer the summit, although all (presumably except Nims) conquered the summit with the help of extra oxygen.
 

To the best of my knowledge, none of the sherpas who achieved great success had a GPS tracker on, which I find almost unbelievable, given that they were on their way to historic success.
 

Never before have people, who have won a summit, posted their shots from the summit so long after winning it.
 

There are nowhere in the footage the ten sherpas who are supposed to win the summit, although individuals are said to have waited for hours at the summit for the rest of the group until they reached the summit.
 

The glacial crack that stopped our advance was at a point where the rope was, too far wide for anyone to jump over. It is possible that the sherpas came over the crack with the help of a ladder, but they deny this. If the crack had expanded to the described width in fourteen days, the rope that had been routed over, would have been torn, but it had been hung for the time of our arrival. The rope that was routed over the crack was the rope that the sherpas ran on their ascent to the top and was not a remnant of previous expeditions, which was personally confirmed to me by one of the sherpas who were supposed to reach the summit.
 

I am probably wrong in all my assumptions and I am sure that I will soon get answers to all the doubts that have arisen for me and my fellow climbers lately.
 

We are all very proud to have been part of a historically successful expedition, but somehow we can’t get rid of the distracting issues that may just be the result of hypoxia and sleepless heads.
 

Personally, I would very much like to come to the realization that the trio conquered the summit before their deaths, and some of the information we received from military intelligence detecting the position of Snorri’s tracking device and his satellite phone, could speak in favor of that. The Pakistani army is still trying to find the trio or their bodies, they have called for the best helicopters and also jet military planes, which are the only ones that can reach the height around the top of the mountain. I hope Snorri’s family will one day get the answersthey are asking, and I am telling his six children and wife Lina that John is probably where he always wanted to be. Every moment of life he was aware that the time, when you are not happy, is really lost. We spent some of the hardest and most beautiful moments of our lives together, we sometimes laughed all night in an ice-cold tent, we missed home, we opened frozen cans together and carried each other in the hardest moments. John was a man who never lived on the side of the majority, he found himself on the side of the different and exceptional. Together we learned the only truth about life: "going forward". We survived success and defeat and I knew him so well that I know he wears wings. ”Death smiles to us all, but only great people, like John, smile back at her. ”