Read Online Buried in the Sky: The Extraordinary Story of the Sherpa Climbers on K2's Deadliest Day by Peter Zuckerman, Amanda Padoan - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Peter Zuckerman, Amanda Padoan
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man told the eight-year-old, and you will bring fame to these valleys.
The boy finished the rock salt and, decades later, pioneered a new line up K2’s treacherous West Ridge with a Japanese expedition. Without using bottled oxygen, he survived a forced bivouac in the Death Zone, four days without sleep and two days without food or water. After K2, Nazir focused his legendary toughness on politics.
In 1994, Nazir ran against Crown Prince Ghazanfar Ali Khan, the hereditary Mir of Hunza, for a seat in the local legislature. With mountaineers as his supporters, Nazir trounced the monarchists, becoming the first commoner to lead Hunza in almost a millennium. Once forced to steal and kill to satisfy their Mir’s greed, climbers now controlled Hunza politics. As the region’s most powerful leader, Nazir fought corruption and built schools and roads, including a jeep track to Shimshal. He mentored Shimshali climbers and employed them on K2 with his expedition company.
Nazir Sabir Expeditions organized the 2008 Serbian K2 Expedition, and Nazir hired Shaheen Baig as the team’s leader. “He’s the safest climber around,” Nazir said, “one of the best in Pakistan.” Nazir breaks down when he thinks of what happened to Shaheen and the other two Shimshalis. “That village will never be the same.”
Despite the new jeep track, Shimshal seems inviolate. The six hundred residents farm barley and herd goats, which they carry in their arms to the grazing lands to avoid setting off landslides. In spring, Shimshal’s apricot orchards explode in a pastel flurry; in winter, snow leopards pad along the riverbank, leaving prints in the frost. After dark, Shimshalis tell mountaineering stories while huddled around yak-tallow candles in a central hall where ancient beams, carved with stars, frame a skylight to the heavens. The village has one satellite phone, which is almost always switched off.
Shimshalis speak Wakhi , a rare language related to Persian. Many of their climbing tales feature Shaheen, but not everyone enjoys them. “These are ghost stories of living men,” said Shaheen’s wife, Khanda. “I leave the room.” She tolerates only one: her husband’s failure on Broad Peak. “It gives me confidence that he has the sense to stay alive.”
Broad Peak, or K3, juts out of the Karakorum like a giant incisor. A moderate 8000er compared to its neighbor, K2, Broad Peak turns brutal in December. Winds pummel the slopes at up to 130 miles per hour, gouging out tents, shredding ropes, and shooting hail like rounds from a machine gun. No climber has managed a winter ascent. Only a few have been daring enough to try.
On Broad Peak in the winter of 2007, Shaheen started each day with a clean shave, although it was haraam , forbidden by Quranic law. The Prophet directed Muslim men to grow beards as a visible sign of their faith, but a temperature of minus 49 degrees Fahrenheit made Shaheen a pragmatist. His whiskers created air pockets between his cheeks and his neoprene mask. At cold enough temperatures, those humid pockets could freeze the mask to his face.
After shaving, Shaheen and his Italian climbing partner, Simone Moro, left for the summit around 6:30 a.m. They made each other a promise: No matter how close they were to the top, they’d turn around at 2 p.m. That way, they’d avoid descending in darkness.
Shaheen felt strong, and at 2 p.m., he could taste the summit . It was perhaps an hour away. Winds were low. Shaheen understood the temptation to continue. If he topped out, the winter ascent would go down as one of the most extreme in mountaineering history, and he would become internationally famous.
“But you can’t think clearly in the Death Zone,” he said. “You have to do it before you get there, when you have judgment. Climbers die when they ignore a set turnaround time.” So he and Simone turned back, reaching their tent before temperatures plunged further at sunset. By getting so close, yet respecting
The boy finished the rock salt and, decades later, pioneered a new line up K2’s treacherous West Ridge with a Japanese expedition. Without using bottled oxygen, he survived a forced bivouac in the Death Zone, four days without sleep and two days without food or water. After K2, Nazir focused his legendary toughness on politics.
In 1994, Nazir ran against Crown Prince Ghazanfar Ali Khan, the hereditary Mir of Hunza, for a seat in the local legislature. With mountaineers as his supporters, Nazir trounced the monarchists, becoming the first commoner to lead Hunza in almost a millennium. Once forced to steal and kill to satisfy their Mir’s greed, climbers now controlled Hunza politics. As the region’s most powerful leader, Nazir fought corruption and built schools and roads, including a jeep track to Shimshal. He mentored Shimshali climbers and employed them on K2 with his expedition company.
Nazir Sabir Expeditions organized the 2008 Serbian K2 Expedition, and Nazir hired Shaheen Baig as the team’s leader. “He’s the safest climber around,” Nazir said, “one of the best in Pakistan.” Nazir breaks down when he thinks of what happened to Shaheen and the other two Shimshalis. “That village will never be the same.”
Despite the new jeep track, Shimshal seems inviolate. The six hundred residents farm barley and herd goats, which they carry in their arms to the grazing lands to avoid setting off landslides. In spring, Shimshal’s apricot orchards explode in a pastel flurry; in winter, snow leopards pad along the riverbank, leaving prints in the frost. After dark, Shimshalis tell mountaineering stories while huddled around yak-tallow candles in a central hall where ancient beams, carved with stars, frame a skylight to the heavens. The village has one satellite phone, which is almost always switched off.
Shimshalis speak Wakhi , a rare language related to Persian. Many of their climbing tales feature Shaheen, but not everyone enjoys them. “These are ghost stories of living men,” said Shaheen’s wife, Khanda. “I leave the room.” She tolerates only one: her husband’s failure on Broad Peak. “It gives me confidence that he has the sense to stay alive.”
Broad Peak, or K3, juts out of the Karakorum like a giant incisor. A moderate 8000er compared to its neighbor, K2, Broad Peak turns brutal in December. Winds pummel the slopes at up to 130 miles per hour, gouging out tents, shredding ropes, and shooting hail like rounds from a machine gun. No climber has managed a winter ascent. Only a few have been daring enough to try.
On Broad Peak in the winter of 2007, Shaheen started each day with a clean shave, although it was haraam , forbidden by Quranic law. The Prophet directed Muslim men to grow beards as a visible sign of their faith, but a temperature of minus 49 degrees Fahrenheit made Shaheen a pragmatist. His whiskers created air pockets between his cheeks and his neoprene mask. At cold enough temperatures, those humid pockets could freeze the mask to his face.
After shaving, Shaheen and his Italian climbing partner, Simone Moro, left for the summit around 6:30 a.m. They made each other a promise: No matter how close they were to the top, they’d turn around at 2 p.m. That way, they’d avoid descending in darkness.
Shaheen felt strong, and at 2 p.m., he could taste the summit . It was perhaps an hour away. Winds were low. Shaheen understood the temptation to continue. If he topped out, the winter ascent would go down as one of the most extreme in mountaineering history, and he would become internationally famous.
“But you can’t think clearly in the Death Zone,” he said. “You have to do it before you get there, when you have judgment. Climbers die when they ignore a set turnaround time.” So he and Simone turned back, reaching their tent before temperatures plunged further at sunset. By getting so close, yet respecting
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