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Matt and I spent most of this summer in Pakistan, trying to climb Broad Peak. We had incredible daily views of Broad Peak and K2, from basecamp:
I didn't make the summit, my highpoint for the trip was around 25,000 feet. We had a great trip, though, we saw some incredible scenery, met local people and climbers from around the world, and learned a few things about big mountain expeditions.
Prior to the trip, the two most common questions people asked me were, "there are mountains in Pakistan?" and "isn't it dangerous there?"
So, to answer the first one, there are some really incredible mountains in Pakistan. There are some tall, steep rock towers:
And some even taller pyramids of snow and ice:
As for the second question, people in Pakistan were really friendly and welcoming. I never felt threatened, walking around Islamabad or Skardu or trekking up the Baltoro. I think I mostly have to say that we have a lot of inaccurate, Islamophobic stereotypes in America. We tend to only read foreign news when things go wrong, so we hear about a few muslim terrorists doing bad things, but we don't read much about the other two billion muslims living peaceful lives, and that skews our perception of what the average person is like.
To be fair, I can't extrapolate my experiences to the entire country. There's some areas (maybe near Chilas or near the border with Afghanistan) where people may not welcome American tourists. But, I can definitely say that Baltistan is a nice place to travel to.
I should also be clear that trekking in Pakistan is not always easy, and there are some risks. Driving on the winding mountain roads seems risky. The approach hike is long and hot. The food and water aren't always safe. Climbing big mountains is inherently dangerous -- People die from exhaustion, altitude sickness, rockfall, avalanches, falling into crevasses or icy rivers, and other causes.
This is all to say, if you want to climb big peaks in Pakistan, you should prepare for all these things, but you shouldn't waste your time worrying about the people there being dangerous; they're not.
We started planning the trip about 8 months prior. We hired a good local company (Karakorum Tours Pakistan) to get us and our gear to basecamp and cook for us there. A few dozen porters helped carry all of our gear and food for an approach hike of maybe 60 miles. We got weather forecasts as satellite text messages -- Chris Tomer did a great job picking a weather window for our summit attempt.
I've always wanted some kind of guideline for how hard you need to train, to climb an 8000 meter peak, to climb one without oxygen, or to climb Everest without oxygen. I still think it's a difficult question to answer. Basically, different people perform better or worse at altitude, so it's hard to predict how you'll do from your low altitude fitness. I think there's also a large amount of mental strength required, it's not simply a physical challenge.
On a previous trip, I met a Polish woman who has climbed Cho Oyu without oxygen. She didn't seem remarkably fit, compared to your average Colorado hiker, but she had some incredible mental endurance and pain tolerance. We climbed Ama Dablam together, she sprained her ankle partway through the trip and then reached the summit about 10 days later, ignoring the pain and inflexibility from her injury.
I trained for about 7 months for this trip. My average training week was about 40 miles of hiking/jogging, with 15,000 feet of elevation gain. At my peak, I was doing more than 20,000 gain/week. I did a few hikes with more than 10,000 feet of gain in one day. I mixed in some strength training and hiking with a heavy pack. I ran some (personal) record times up local hills -- I ran up bierstadt in an hour, grays peak from the highway in 1:50, boulder's green mountain in 39 minutes.
Despite all this preparation, I felt really slow at high altitudes. This got a bit better as I acclimated -- after a month living at 16,000 feet, I was able to comfortably jog at that elevation, but I still couldn't perform very well higher up than that, I was always slow above 18,000 feet.
Matt trained much less, mostly going to Phish concerts and occasionally hiking when he felt like it. He could walk uphill much faster than me, though, at high altitudes. He could sleep well at high camps, I could barely sleep at all above 20,000 feet.
I can't really explain this. My best guess is that there's just something genetically different about him that makes him perform better up high. It's also possible that going to dozens of Phish shows has raised Matt's pain tolerance to incredible levels -- I'm not sure I have the endurance to survive even one of those.
I think my general feeling, after a few trips to the Himalayas, is that an average hiker, with good training and a lot of motivation, can climb to 8000 meters without oxygen. But, some people people do better than others, and high altitudes are painfully hard for almost everyone. I'm still not sure about Everest, doing that without oxygen might be out of reach of an average person.
There's lots of reasons for climbing with or without oxygen. For me, it was an easy choice to go without. The main challenge of climbing a mountain this tall is that the air is thin and it's hard to move. Using oxygen simulates climbing a shorter peak, dropping the altitude by at least 3000 feet, maybe a lot more than that, it all depends on how much you use, and how fast you're moving. Here's a quick summary from Tom Hornbein. I already know that I can climb shorter peaks, so that sounded less interesting to me -- I wanted a challenge to test my limits.
We didn't hire guides or sherpas or high altitude porters to help us above basecamp. Climbing big mountains is risky, and the local people that facilitate it die at an alarming rate. I'm not comfortable hiring someone else to take deadly risks so that I can more easily get to the top of a mountain.
We talked about avoiding the fixed ropes, but ended up using them from time to time. It's more enjoyable and genuine to climb the terrain of a mountain with your crampons and axe, instead of pulling yourself up a rope that someone else has placed. The terrain on Broad Peak is generally not that difficult, most of the route is just steep snow climbing, but there are a few short cruxes, maybe AI2, and there's some exposed rock, later in the season. If you're comfortable climbing up and down a steep couloir in Colorado (maybe skywalker or flying dutchman) without a rope, then you'd be comfortable climbing Broad Peak without. That said, it sometimes feels stupid to climb solo next to a rope, when you could be safer and faster by using one. I kind of mixed things up, usually I'd climb uphill without them, I'd often clip a rope on the descent to limit potential slide distance if I fell, and I got lazy and rappelled most of the route, the last time I came off the mountain (my ice axe had broken while chopping some ice).
At some level, climbing ethics are totally arbitrary. We all rely on technology and support from others, in various ways. I guess I'd just say that it's up to every person to choose a goal that inspires them, and to do their best to not harm others in the process.
Anyways, more pictures. From basecamp to the start of the route, you wind through some icy terrain. We did this in lightweight boots, microspikes could have helped, through this section, but we got by without.
There's one dangerous icy river to cross here, it's mostly empty in the morning but gets wide enough in the afternoons that you can't jump across. We crossed this in a few different places, as the season progressed. A few people have died here, the current will quickly carry you down an icy chute, I think you'd get trapped in a constriction downstream.
This is the base of the route, we kept our heavier boots, crampons, and axes cached in a bag here. There's a bergschrund crossing here, but then the route is free of crevasses until above camp 2.
It's steep snow slopes up to camp 1.
Later in the season this section melted out heavily and had a bit of rockfall.
Camp 1 is on a small rocky outcrop, we couldn't find room for a tent site here, so we dug into the snow slope above. Guided groups grab the best sites early on and leave the tents set up through the season. We spent hours at every camp shovelling/chopping out platforms to get something flat enough to sleep.
There's more snow slopes up to camp 2, with some short, icy sections that were steeper.
Camp 2 is at about 6300m/20,500 feet. Views down to the glacier start getting really good from here.
There's more steep snow up to camp 3, you can see down to the glaciers converging at Concordia.
We climbed up and down to camp 2 a number of times, to move supplies up and acclimate. We made two summit pushes, over the course of the trip.
On the first push, we knew there was good weather for 3 or 4 days. We went up early in that window, made it to camp 3 at 7000m/23,000 feet. It started snowing, that afternoon, and didn't let up until past midnight. No one went for the summit that night. We had carried light packs -- we had down suits and a tent, but no sleeping bags. We could have tried to wait out a cold night, slept poorly or not at all, and tried again the next day. Instead, we descended back to camp 2 that night and resolved to wait for the next good weather window. The next night was just as bad, a bunch of other people gave up waiting and descended. The 3rd night ended up being perfect, I watched from basecamp as headlamps slowly moved up the upper mountain. Two big guided groups went for the summit that night, most of the clients turned around, but a few of them made it, and all the guides and porters summitted. I think the most successful company got 25% of its clients to the top.
It took about 2 weeks to get another chance to summit, during which time we got increasingly nervous that we'd missed our one shot at this. Planning a climb in Pakistan is a bit trickier than Nepal -- every year in May, Everest gets a predictable window of good weather after the jet stream moves away from the summit and before the monsoon hits. The Karakorum isn't as reliable, K2 often goes the entire summer without a good enough window for anyone to summit.
Near the end of July, we started getting word of another weather window coming, but again, it was a bit difficult to tell which the best day would be. We moved up to camp 2 and waited for a couple nights. We got confirmation that July 27th would be really good, so we moved up to camp 3, with a bit more weight this time so we could sleep there if necessary.
I got up to camp 3 around 3 PM in the afternoon. We had a few hours to make water, have a small dinner, and get ready. We'd initially planned to have a short rest and start for the summit around 10 PM, but people around the camp started floating a different plan -- everyone would start around sunset, at 7 PM, and climb through the full night. I was a bit worried that we'd do poorly without rest, and I was worried we'd end up high on the mountain before the sun rose and we'd get too cold in the dark -- I'd had my first summit attempt on Aconcagua fail for that reason.
I started out fast, a few minutes after the sherpas and porters left, but I couldn't catch up, even though they were breaking trail and I was following. After half an hour, I gave up on trying to catch up and settled into a slower pace. A few other climbers (Matt, Tunc, and Oscar) caught up with me, and we stayed together for a few hours.
I eventually lagged behind again, dealing with cold feet. I'd started out with slightly damp socks and my toes started getting painfully cold, so I stopped to crack some handwarmers and shove them into the tongue of my boots. That helped reduce the pain enough that I could keep going.
Sometime around midnight, things really started falling apart. I started feeling incredibly sleepy. I spent some time walking uphill with my eyes closed, I just couldn't keep them open. I started taking sitting breaks, where I'd fall asleep for a few seconds, but I couldn't stay still for long, my feet would get too cold. I also wondered if I could get really comfortable, if I'd even wake up.
My pace slowed to the point that every other climber slowly passed me, over the next couple hours. Eventually, I was alone in the dark, altering between plodding uphill and taking sitting breaks to close my eyes.
This was kind of beautiful, in its own way, I was walking under a really dark sky and watching a lightning storm 100 miles away in the distance. The wind was calm, everything was quiet.
I started wondering if this was safe, for a lot of reasons. I was drowsy enough to easily have an accident. Most of the terrain wasn't that technical though, so it might still be safe.
A few weeks earlier, during the first summit push, one climber had collapsed unconscious with brain swelling (HACE), she'd needed an injection of dexamethasone to revive her and to help her safely descend. I started to wonder if that's what I was experiencing, rather than simple fatigue. I tried to test myself, a bit, to see how fuzzy my thinking was. I could still do some mental math, and things like that.
I thought a bit about Ed Viesteurs, how he'd said that climbing Everest without oxygen was just 12 hours of trying to tell yourself every excuse possible to turn around and end the pain. So, I wasn't sure, maybe this was all normal? It's hard to know how you're supposed to feel at any given altitude, it takes time and experience. I know it's normal to get increasingly out of breath, the higher you go. At 25,000 feet, I have to take a few breaths to take a single step. I don't think altered mental status is normal, though. The first time I ever got above 22,000 feet, in Nepal, I was in a dreamy state, the world hurt like I had a bad cold, my thoughts were free associating in weird ways. At the time, I figured that was normal, but I later learned that's not okay. I've been that high a few times since, and had none of those symptoms.
I kept going, but I started bargaining with myself. Maybe I'd go until sunrise and see if things got better. Maybe I could at least make the false summit a little above 8000 meters, in the time that others traversed the ridge to the true summit at 8047.
Eventually, I watched the sun rise against K2, and saw Broad Peak's shadow cast against the horizon.
Maybe an hour after sunrise, I looked up and saw Matt descending alone. I'm not really sure how far ahead he was -- distance is hard to comprehend at these heights, because you move so slowly. I could maybe climb 200 feet in an hour, so a person that's not very far ahead might be an hour away, or more. Moving downhill isn't that hard, though, I think Matt was only descending for 10 or 15 minutes before we met up.
Basically, the route started to get steeper and more technical as we got near the saddle, he was also falling asleep on his feet, and he was worried about losing control and falling down the mountain. I was thrilled for any excuse to give up, at this point, so we headed down to camp together. In total, I think I walked uphill for 11 hours. Some of the climbers that continued took 17 or 18 hours uphill to summit, and more than 24 hours roundtrip.
Things didn't get easier right away -- we'd walk downhill a few hundred feet, sit to sleep a bit, and repeat. After a midday nap at camp 3, we felt reasonably good, I descended to camp 2, Matt made it all the way to basecamp that night.
So, I'm disappointed I didn't make it, but that's part of the game. Sometimes when you go out looking for your limits, you find them. If I want to do better, I have to think through what went wrong and fix that. I mostly just got shut down due to sleep deprivation. I attempted the summit push with no sleep, and for the two nights prior to that at camp 2, I was only sleeping 2-3 hours a night. There are a few things I could have done better.
The obvious one, I could have just kept going. A lot of people summited on the same day I turned around. I mean, Andrew Hamilton can hike 14ers for ten days straight on minimal sleep, I think he would have had no problem up there.
We could have also started a bit later. I think that resting a few hours prior to an alpine start is valuable, even if you can't sleep.
We could have also made a camp 4 at 7400 meters. That would make summit day shorter and easier, though it could be a trade off, you're spending another night above 7000 meters, where you might not rest well.
I could have taken a lot of caffeine. I was sipping a nalgene full of black tea, but I could have used something stronger. I actually had two caffeinated clif bars in my backpack, but I never thought to stop and eat them (rather, thaw and eat them, eating clif bars is a complicated process at low temperatures). I think I had a strange sort of tunnel vision at high altitude, where I could only see my options as black and white -- I could give up or keep plodding along, but I had trouble thinking what I could do to take care of myself.
I also had some dexamethasone pills, basically a synthetic form of adrenaline that's used to treat altitude sickness. I'd imagine that could have given me some energy, though it might be kind of dangerous, in that I could get myself further into a worse situation without being able to resort to the stuff later if I had problems.
I'm not really sure about the ethics of all this stuff. Hermann Buhl made the first ascents of both Broad Peak and Nanga Parbat. On Nanga, he used methamphetamine pills and coca tea to stay awake for 40 hours. The history of drug use in climbing is interesting, there's a good discussion of it here.
I could maybe have eaten better. I was eating nothing but sugary snacks, since it's hard to eat anything at that altitude, and those were the most palatable snacks. I might have had a sugar crash that contributed to my problems. Training my body to burn fat better might help.
Little things like having a brighter headlamp could have maybe helped.
Basically, if I thought about doing this trip again, there's only a small set of things I would change, mostly just strategies to have more energy on summit day. Other than that, I think our strategy was mostly sound, our gear was good, I think our fitness was probably good enough.
After that push, we broke down basecamp and hiked out.
Most of our gear got carried back down the Baltoro glacier, while we crossed the Gondogoro La, which is a snowy pass of about 18,000 feet.
We woke up at 1 AM to cross the pass in the dark, I think this was mostly to avoid avalanche risk. Despite that, there was a big avalanche above us, at some point in the middle of the night. I couldn't see a thing, so I started to run sideways from the sound, a few other people ducked in place. The slide didn't reach us, but there was a big debris field near the trail, higher up.
I hadn't researched this part of the trek, and didn't realize the height we were going to, so I'd only brought my trail runners (bushidos) and had no insulation or traction. I wore trash bags over my socks and just tried to keep moving really fast in the snow, getting to the top of the pass before anyone else that morning.
We arm wrap rappelled some fixed ropes on the other side of the pass. The rock here is horrendously loose, a lot of trekking groups come over the pass, I'm surprised that people don't die here every year.
Soon, we'd descended the valley far enough to see living plants for the first time in over a month. Part of the fun of climbing is experiencing contrasts, moving from your normal life to a world of snow and ice. Coming back off a mountain is often even more intense, I get the same trippy feeling at the end of every expedition, that I'm returning from a barren, snowy place into a green, living world. Colors are enhanced, patterns jump out at me.
20 miles later, we were at a warm camp by a river, eating fried chicken, fresh tomatoes and mangoes. (Pakistan has some of the best mangoes I've ever tasted)
A day later, we were driving back to Skardu. That gives another sense of contrast, since you've been sitting still at basecamp for weeks and you're suddenly moving, and also because the roads don't look much like at home.
Some of the locals get around by riding in small vans. When they can't fit enough people in one van, the rest just get to sit on the roof:
Getting out of your car to fix something, while driving fast down winding roads, is perfectly normal:
Trucks are decorated in a beautiful, ornate fashion:
Traffic jams might just be caused by goats:
A few days later, we were flying back to the US, which is more culture shock. Abu Dhabi airport is full of people in white robes. And then, before long, I was back in the US, where my first thoughts are often simple things like "people at customs were really rude", "why is everyone overweight, in this airport?", or "all the cars are really nice here".
Most of the porters I met in Pakistan are living in small villages and mostly work for money in the summertime, it sounds more like subsistence living in the off season. Our cook said he spends the fall going up into the hills every day, collecting 80 pounds of firewood, and carrying it down to his village, so they'll have enough fuel to make it through a cold winter.
I'm back in Colorado, where heating my home is a lot easier than that, but I'm out hiking as much as I can, in preparation for next year. Maybe I'll be lucky enough to get out for another trip like this.
Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):
"I spent some time walking uphill with my eyes closed." Hahahaha sounds like you had an incredible trip and made the right call! Those little kids look incredibly dangerous, though. The could probably bite right through an ankle. I hear'ya on the speed, acclimatization, and everything else--some people are just born with it.
Congratulations on breaking 25K and thanks for sharing this adventure!
Each of your photos really says 1000 words. The people, #31, the mountains at night, the goat pic, #38, that classic truck shot. Cool shots. #18 - did you need to cross this via tyrolean traverse? What do you do for work that you can spend the summer there??
What an experience you've had. Bummer you didn't summit, and with the peaks you've done, it's definitely not for the lack of training/experience. I agree I think it's because of lack of sleep, I've been stymied by lack of sleep on more than one peak.
Thanks for posting this, it was an enjoyable read tonight.
I enjoyed the transparent, objective, and informative nature of your writing Peter! It'd be quite interesting to see how you'd do on a second trip.
Although I can't relate to a lot here, I can relate to the feeling of seeing any color other than snow and sky and wearing runners for the first time in weeks (as well having a shower and bed and seeing people). It's an experience for sure! Thanks for sharing yours so well.
Epic job guys. Sounds like you made the good call based on how you were feeling. Very proud of you guys and can't wait to see whats next. Those are some of the best shots of K2 I have ever seen.
Nyker, it wasn't a tyrolean, it was like a handline, so you have a little more confidence to run and jump across. It wasn't a huge gap, 5 or 6 feet or something, just hard to commit when the take-off and landing are a bit icy. One guy blew the landing and ended up hanging from the rope, he held on with one hand while someone reached out to grab his other hand and pull him in, they succeeded at pulling his glove off. Then, one more attempt and they successfully pulled him in.
Regarding work, I'm not sure how you can hold down a good job and do this stuff. I saved up money for about 10 years at programming jobs, right now I'm taking a few years off to focus on climbing and travel. Matt was working as a project manager, he took like 8 months off to travel and do a few expeditions, and he mixed in some short term work to help make that happen.
What an adventure of a lifetime. Excellent write up and photos. Sorry you weren't able to summit, but I also know how a lack of sleep can foil your plans and all you can say is "better luck next time." Hopefully you will be able to get back there and try it again someday... :)
No summit but you learned a lot about what it takes on 8000m peaks. You'll make the top next time. Seeing K2 at sunrise at 25k feet must have been amazing.
Also thanks for the part on what it takes to climb 8000m peaks and the associated training. Thats great stuff. I need to start going to Phish shows instead of endless laps up and down Morrison with 40 pounds.
Such an epic story, and agreed the writing is phenomenal. I felt I was in your headspace as I read, I am tired now too. The images, both written and in photos, are unreal/surreal and you took us there. I hope you feel as though you accomplished much on this journey. I believe you did, and am inspired by not only what you did, but how you did it and how it transformed you.
Great job and incredible photos. Wonderfully written. Such an incredible part of the world. Thanks for sharing
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