Nanga Parbat 2005: Everest Summiter IVAN VALLEJO RICAURTE FROM A BALCONY IN NANGA PARBAT

Wake up at two in the morning in BC to climb to 6,000 m carrying ropes and my personal equipment, believe it, it is very hard for me.  The first 15 minutes I move as a zombie trying to be lest dumb and trying not to put my socks inside out or salt instead of sugar, in my tea with lemon cup.

At 3 in the morning we leave, Hassan and I from our group, and Riki, Nacho and Martin from the Aragon group.  The danger of falling in a crevasse during the first part of the trail wakes me up, crevasses that have been recently opened in the glacier next to BC.  At 5:15 we reach C1 (4,800 m), we hydrate and rest a little before going to C2.

Everybody go away, I stay a little longer in my tent, because we are not in a rush today, I have all day to reach C2.  At 6:10 I put my backpack on my shoulders and I am scared f the weight in it.  I have voluntarily decided to collaborate by taking, besides my personal stuff, 140 m of rope split in two rolls of 70 each.  Mentally I repeat myself that I have to take these long hours with philosophy, as my teammate Edurne uses to say, when she wants to refer to take something easy, slowly and without a rush.  I am going through this enormous slope of snow, rocks and ice of more than 1000 m of length, the piolet in my hand, the cane in the other and under the iron in my boots, luckily, the hard snow that resists my steps.  But I feel crushed under the weight of my backpack, I climb very slowly, I don’t ascend in an orderly way, very frequently I step on my own feet.  Damn!  Time passes and with such uselessness I recognize that the load is stronger than me. 

However, I decide to fight and I have the idea of taking out one of the rolls of rope, open it, extend it and tie it to my waist though the harness to drag it along the slope instead of carrying it.  Let’s do it!  That’s what I do.  The weight of the backpack is lighter, to my happiness.  I start ascending while dragging that plastic snake, but it is too hard; my torso and my waist make an enormous effort to make that unmovable animal crawl.  I fell that the bands of my harness bite my waist and my thighs.  I can’t, I can’t take it anymore!  And that pretty exercise of recognizing uselessness, I stop again, I untie the rope, I leave it tied to a rock and I continue.  What a relief!

The slope is big, but so am I, because I climb with enthusiasm and with happiness, even joking with my teammates.

At 10 in the morning, Riki and I stop at the bottom of the Kinshofer wall and we make a line waiting for a turn to climb.  While my colleagues climb, we eat a chocolate bar and drink water.  I did not do it well on the wall the last time, the verticality and flatness of the wall defeated me in some parts, but now I have promised myself to do it better and with elegance.  When my turn comes I leave the crampons, that was the mistake, and I start climbing.  Wonderful, what a joy to climb that way!  My hands and the rock, my feet and the rock, my agitated breath and my body that gains centimeters against gravity.  I even have the luxury of filming Ricardo.  I rest a little, I grab a candy and I go through the last part that is the flattest of all.  One second before I start I say again: You are going to do it nice and enjoying it.  And once again I am sticking to the rock like Peter Parker after becoming Spider Man, trying to reach C2.

At 11 in the morning I am once again in C2, we all gather, celebrate and get in the shelter of the tents to escape the brutal heat.  The tent, hanging in the emptiness on the edge of a balcony; the little stove, in a path on the edge of the snow, and Hassan and I inside, resting and rehydrating.

The wet clothes on our bodies help lower the temperature, we have to change, especially the socks.  I do it first and when it is Hassan’s turn, I don’t know why I get the memory of a deli exposing in the window the most mature of the Roquefort cheeses.  Luckily I am just at 6,000 m of altitude, because with that aroma at 7,000, I would suddenly put my head outside the tent’s door and threw it all up.

Without saying anything and with a nice face I listen what Hassan says in his bad English about Islam, the reason why he is, among other things, the father of five children, one after another, like a rodent.

Since I am not bad in the kitchen, you can ask Karma, I start to cook garbanzos with chicken stew and onions rings on olive oil.  All that at 6,000 m: I am a master.

-Very good Sir.  Very good cooker Sir

The afternoon dies, the sun is going to the other side of the world, a little wind blows and it is cold.  We close the tent, we sink in out sleeping bags and we rest, but for Hassan, with his one meter ninety, the length of the tent is not enough.  He has to cross in diagonal and his legs, long like poles, go on top of mine.  What a night awaits for me!

I try not to pay attention and I turn on my frontal lamp and I read the chronicles of Rosa Montero before going to sleep.  Tomorrow we will search for a place for Camp 3.

Ivan Vallejo Ricaurte

Expeditioneer

Translated from Spanish by Jorge Rivera

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