The Summit Page #5

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When you love someone

and they love doing something,

you're happy for them.

Of course,

it's a dangerous mountain.

Any mountain's

a dangerous mountain.

But he knew he could climb it,

and he knew

he could climb it safely.

And I think

he wanted to go back.

There are always things

you don't talk about

and which you don't expect,

and one thing

was that in this meeting,

the leader

of the high-altitude porters

who are making,

breaking trail,

I trust this guy completely.

Doing this...

But what happened...

He went ill.

So no leader anymore.

High-altitude porters

of the Sherpas,

they're going to fix the rope,

and the members

from the Koreans,

they're going to countercheck

the rope,

that it is affixed properly

on the mountain.

The new plan

was that a Korean leader,

you know,

he was the climbing leader

of the big Korean team-

he would check everything

in Camp Four,

but he didn't.

We have a plan.

12:
00,

the first party should move.

But 11:
00,

Korean climbing leader

is still inside the tents,

keep smoking and smoking and...

Then finally I said, "No,

now we have to do it ourself."

So this Sherpa, Pemba,

his face, I remember

very clearly that night.

He was the kind of person

that transmitted

safety, security,

wanting to know who I was,

how I got there

in the middle of the night.

I told him, "I am climbing solo",

"and I am hoping

to go up with you."

The summit bid was delayed

because people

were wandering around like,

"Hey, where's the gear?"

"Where's the equipment?"

"Where's the rope?"

We are way back in time.

We are really late.

Very disappointing.

The high-altitude porters,

they're just starting

to fixing the ropes,

and Pemba was not

that kind of leader

who said, "Listen."

"We are going to do it

like this," you know?

I was surprised

that they were putting

fixed ropes

at areas which didn't need it.

Just, like, 10 meters

from the tents or something.

There were ropes

very, very early on.

Suddenly,

there's no more progression,

and people

are just standing there waiting.

And they yelled back

that they'd run out of rope.

We were thinking,

"In God's sake,

how is this possible?"

The only thing you can do

is going back, cut the ropes,

and bring it up,

and that's what we did.

We were delayed with two hours,

and that's too long.

You can't catch up two hours

on a summit bid.

Even though

there were perfect conditions,

in the death zone,

you're just losing more energy.

Those people,

they are too optimistic

for the summit,

and that's why they keep climb.

They forget so many things

about safety.

Aah!

People think that we're mad.

How can you continue

if someone died?

But if you drive a car,

you see people crash.

You see people die in traffic.

You keep on driving,

'cause you-

you think

it's not gonna happen to you.

I see.

Is he in the rock?

- He's here.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- The rock.

Yeah, right there at the edge.

If everybody turned back

after the Serbian people

fell down,

then I think there was only 1

casualties on the mountain

instead of 11.

How are you?

Good.

But not a great day today.

A hard day for me today.

Yes.

It was not a good day.

He said, "You go."

"You feel strong.

You are strong."

"You go to there...

to the top with Lars."

And I looked back many times,

and every time I looked back

and if he was looking at me

at the same time,

he was, like, thumbs up

and like, "Keep on going."

Rolf and me,

we talk several times.

Then Rolf say,

"Now, Pemba, I want to go back"

"because these guys

are very stupid"

"because nobody

talking each other"

"about the timing."

"Really, I don't understand

the people."

- It's so hard to turn around,

and it's so easy

to just continue a little bit,

just a half an hour to see.

I could see Lars

on the summit.

He took Rolf's rabbit hat on

and danced on the summit.

We had just a few minutes-

took pictures.

Even in our most crazy dreams,

we wouldn't have dreamt it

to be that beautiful.

With that shadow of K2

into China-

absolutely beautiful.

I enjoyed the view,

but the only thing

that was in our head

was that we're not gonna stay

here for very long.

We're going back.

We have to get back to the ropes

before it gets dark.

We're on the summit of K2!

Whoo-hoo!

Yo, yo, yo.

Time passes by

in a very strange fashion

up there.

What may feel

like a couple of seconds

could actually be a minute

or vice versa.

You know,

it's very hard to tell.

He phoned me,

and I was lucky enough

that the connection was made.

He was elated.

He told me everybody

was feeling good,

that there was no problem.

And then...

yeah, I was just hoping

to hear from him,

you know,

five or six hours' time.

When we ready to descend,

and he's saying,

"Okay, now I don't want

to take the flags"

"camera, sat phone,"

"everything you have to carry."

And I took everything.

You know that almost all

the accidents in climbing

happen on the way down,

on the descent.

You get exhausted.

You relax.

It gets dark.

So that's a factor

that every climber know.

We caught up with Rolf

further down.

He was so happy

and congratulated us.

And we decided to descend

together, of course,

down to the fixed ropes,

slow, but efficient.

It gets dark just 15 minutes

after we get to the fixed ropes,

so we put on our head torches.

When Rolf gets there, I ask him

if he wants to go first,

or if he wants me to go first.

Do you want me to go first?

- He said, "Lars, I go first."

- No, I go first.

- "You look after my wife."

- You look after my wife.

Yeah.

That's the...

It's the last thing he said.

I don't know

if I heard anything,

but I felt it.

The ground

was shaking underneath me.

The last thing I saw

was Rolf's head torch moving.

And then it was dark.

You must think I'm crazy

saying this, but...

Suddenly,

I could hear his voice.

And it was so strong.

It was, like, saying,

"You have to get down."

You're going down thinking,

"Follow the lines,

and there is Camp Four."

And in a few days,

we would have big party

with all the teams

in the base camp.

The problem is,

you are so exhausted,

and you are not

that concentrated.

And everybody is going down

in his own speed.

We reached the Korean Sherpas

and Korean team.

Everybody,

they come together, regroup.

We have only one option.

We put all people together

on one rope,

then try to bring down together.

We were looking

up the mountain every hour,

and we were monitoring

our radios all the time.

And we were getting

more and more anxious

about their safety.

We see these headlamps

and thinking,

"Oh, my God.

Oh, my God."

"They're not moving very fast."

"What's going on?"

We started feeling...

Hopeless.

The Korean completely stopped.

It was impossible

to bring them down

with the same rope

because they sit down.

The whole thing

was a little bit stuck,

so it was not totally clear.

One moment, you are not walking

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