the Motivator looked much the same year after year. It seemed to be pretty stable. It had a fairly smooth face—there weren’t big broken chunks that looked ready to plunge with the first gust of wind. And in more than fifty years, no one had ever reported seeing ice calve away from that face.
Since we had the Bottleneck to ourselves in ‘92, we climbed it as fast as we could. That was a luxury 2008’s climbers didn’t have. As soon as the guys in the lead reached the bottom of the couloir, the whole procession stalled. The climbers lined up, one after another, but no one could move faster than the slowest man. The climb quickly turned into a traffic jam. On top of that, matters were made much worse by the climbers’ common assumption that they needed fixed ropes to get up and down the Bottleneck safely.
Afterward, some of the survivors lashed out at other climbers on the mountain, accusing them of making mistakes that led directly to the tragedy. No one was more critical than Wilco van Rooijen, the forty-year-oldleader of the Dutch Norit K2 expedition. “Everything was going well to Camp IV,” he told the press from his hospital bed, “and on the summit attempt everything went wrong.” To a reporter from Reuters, van Rooijen elaborated: “The biggest mistake we made was that we tried to make agreements…. Everybody had his own responsibility and then some people did not do what they promised. With such stupid things lives are endangered.”
Since there were so many different teams on the mountain, their leaders had crafted the “agreements” to which van Rooijen referred. The plan was for nine climbers to string almost 2,000 feet of rope up the Bottleneck and across the leftward traverse that leads to easier ground. On August 1, however, the available supply of rope was at least 300 feet short—causing the leaders to doubt whether there was enough to equip the whole dangerous passage. In addition, as van Rooijen complained to
Men’s Journal
correspondent Matthew Power, several of the nine lead climbers “just didn’t show up.”
Then, to make matters worse, the rope fixers started stringing their lines too low, on the relatively easy ground before the Bottleneck really commences. By the time they got to the most hazardous part of the climb, they were out of rope. “We were astonished,” van Rooijen later told the Associated Press. “We had to move [the fixed ropes]. That took, of course, many, many hours. Some turned back because they didn’t trust it any more.” Speaking to Power, the Dutchman was even more scathing: “We lost many, many hours because of this stupid thing, which we already talked about many, many times at Base Camp.”
I’m sorry, but I just don’t buy it. Van Rooijen claims he couldn’t climb because the ropes had not been fixed in the right places. Well, whose fault was that? Does your success depend on what other people do? Van Rooijen blames the others for the delay. Why didn’t he get out and do something?
Meanwhile, the solo Basque climber, Alberto Zerain, was hours ahead of all the others. He had cruised up the Bottleneck and across the traverse without even thinking about fixed ropes. Zerain would reach thesummit at 3:00 P.M .—the only climber that day, in my opinion, to top out at a reasonable hour.
Some 1,600 feet lower on the mountain, the traffic jam had ground to a halt. According to Power, “A decision was made to cut a lower section of the rope and use it to protect climbers as they made their way across the traverse [leading leftward from the top of the Bottleneck]. A knife was passed down to cut the rope near its bottom anchor, and the rope was pulled back up to the head of the line.”
At around 11:00 A.M., the first fatality occurred. Somewhere in the middle of the traffic jam, a Serbian climber, Dren Mandic, unclipped himself from the fixed rope. Afterward, all kinds of explanations about what Mandic was attempting to do appeared in print and on the
Since we had the Bottleneck to ourselves in ‘92, we climbed it as fast as we could. That was a luxury 2008’s climbers didn’t have. As soon as the guys in the lead reached the bottom of the couloir, the whole procession stalled. The climbers lined up, one after another, but no one could move faster than the slowest man. The climb quickly turned into a traffic jam. On top of that, matters were made much worse by the climbers’ common assumption that they needed fixed ropes to get up and down the Bottleneck safely.
Afterward, some of the survivors lashed out at other climbers on the mountain, accusing them of making mistakes that led directly to the tragedy. No one was more critical than Wilco van Rooijen, the forty-year-oldleader of the Dutch Norit K2 expedition. “Everything was going well to Camp IV,” he told the press from his hospital bed, “and on the summit attempt everything went wrong.” To a reporter from Reuters, van Rooijen elaborated: “The biggest mistake we made was that we tried to make agreements…. Everybody had his own responsibility and then some people did not do what they promised. With such stupid things lives are endangered.”
Since there were so many different teams on the mountain, their leaders had crafted the “agreements” to which van Rooijen referred. The plan was for nine climbers to string almost 2,000 feet of rope up the Bottleneck and across the leftward traverse that leads to easier ground. On August 1, however, the available supply of rope was at least 300 feet short—causing the leaders to doubt whether there was enough to equip the whole dangerous passage. In addition, as van Rooijen complained to
Men’s Journal
correspondent Matthew Power, several of the nine lead climbers “just didn’t show up.”
Then, to make matters worse, the rope fixers started stringing their lines too low, on the relatively easy ground before the Bottleneck really commences. By the time they got to the most hazardous part of the climb, they were out of rope. “We were astonished,” van Rooijen later told the Associated Press. “We had to move [the fixed ropes]. That took, of course, many, many hours. Some turned back because they didn’t trust it any more.” Speaking to Power, the Dutchman was even more scathing: “We lost many, many hours because of this stupid thing, which we already talked about many, many times at Base Camp.”
I’m sorry, but I just don’t buy it. Van Rooijen claims he couldn’t climb because the ropes had not been fixed in the right places. Well, whose fault was that? Does your success depend on what other people do? Van Rooijen blames the others for the delay. Why didn’t he get out and do something?
Meanwhile, the solo Basque climber, Alberto Zerain, was hours ahead of all the others. He had cruised up the Bottleneck and across the traverse without even thinking about fixed ropes. Zerain would reach thesummit at 3:00 P.M .—the only climber that day, in my opinion, to top out at a reasonable hour.
Some 1,600 feet lower on the mountain, the traffic jam had ground to a halt. According to Power, “A decision was made to cut a lower section of the rope and use it to protect climbers as they made their way across the traverse [leading leftward from the top of the Bottleneck]. A knife was passed down to cut the rope near its bottom anchor, and the rope was pulled back up to the head of the line.”
At around 11:00 A.M., the first fatality occurred. Somewhere in the middle of the traffic jam, a Serbian climber, Dren Mandic, unclipped himself from the fixed rope. Afterward, all kinds of explanations about what Mandic was attempting to do appeared in print and on the
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