Shared Summits team member pondering Nanga Parbat. Image courtesy of the Shared Summits expedition website.
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Chris Warner's Nanga Parbat debrief: about Karl, Saman, egotism, camaraderie, risks and the spirit of mountaineering.
Posted: Jul 29, 2008 01:35 pm EST
(K2Climb.net) "We learned that the first person was dead when we were baking the cake. By the time I blew the candles out, the second person was dying. This was my fourth birthday celebrated in Pakistan, and like all the others it was more painful than fun."
Chris Warner is back home in US, reflecting on his Nanga Parbat expedition. For a number of years now, stories of people left for dead but surviving on Everest - such as Beck Weathers, Lincoln Hall, latest Sultan and Faruq - have taught mountaineers that we can survive on high altitude much longer than we had previously thought. This summer, Nanga Parbat offered the same lesson, only too late.
"Saman, it was assumed by all, was dead," Chris reports. "He spent two nights without shelter, above 25,000 feet. The first 24 hours were spent in a struggle towards the summit, the second 24 hours were spent laying in the snow. It seemed logical that he would be dead by now. But at 10:30 p.m. 25 hours after his light was last seen, 46 hours since leaving Camp 4, a flash of light sparkled from the remote right corner of the summit pyramid."
Go to Chris Warner's debrief
and get all the details on what went down on Nanga Parbat this past month, including flashbacks on K2 last year, egotism, camaraderie, risks and the spirit of mountaineering.
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