You don’t see dead bodies on K2, the world’s second highest peak. Unlike its famous brother Everest, where frozen corpses litter the track to the top of the world, K2 is too steep - it sheds the bodies, according to Canberra mountaineer Chris Warner, who has seen his fair share.
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The 35-year-old was the first Canberran to climb Everest in 2010, but on July 26 this year, huddled on the side of K2, Warner didn’t like what he was seeing. The weather was closing in, and his climbing partners, New Zealanders Marty and Denali Schmidt, were keen to push on for the summit.
“We weren’t establishing camps along the way. It was a quick push and we were carrying the tent with us and we weren’t staging each camp, which is the typical way to climb an 8000-metre peak,’’ Warner said.
Snow had been falling all night on top of a 30 degree slope of curving blue ice. As they prepared to leave camp, Warner made the agonising decision to turn back, depressed that he was abandoning his chance to make the summit. It was a decision that almost certainly saved his life.
Marty 53, and his son Denali, 25, and Warner had acclimatised by summiting Broad Peak and were attempting a quick, alpine-style ascent of K2, without sherpas.
“I felt the three of us wouldn’t have been able to push on past camp three because the snow was so deep, we needed more man power and I felt what was the point of going to camp three when we couldn’t keep going.’’
He arrived back at base camp and waited for a scheduled 6pm call from Marty.
“By 6.45 they radioed in; they had taken nine hours to reach camp three.
"Marty was brief, he said it had been a hard day, that it was very windy with spindrift and that they were cold. He congratulated Denali as he had broken trail to camp three pushing through waist deep snow to 7200m.’’
It would be the last time anyone spoke to Marty - the pair's plans were unsure but they would make a decision by the scheduled 8am phone call. The 8am, noon and 6pm call time passed with no contact.
“It’s quite common for people to die. In 2008 I was on K2 and there was a massive disaster where over a period of 24 hours 11 people died,’’ he said. “I don’t believe in luck- I made a decision and this was the outcome -I don’t think I was lucky,’’ he said.
Warner credits Sherpa Ming Ma with giving the Schmidt family closure. The local guide travelled from base camp to camp three in one day to see a very large avalanche with a scar about 400m wide. He found an axe and crampons that matched the type both Marty and Denali had been using.
There was no sign of them or their tent. “It was a feeling that it was so unreal - I didn’t see them die. I didn’t see the avalanche so it’s almost like it didn’t happen. So there is this unconscious expectation that they are going to walk back in to camp with a smile on their faces.’’
No-one saw the avalanche but Warner believes the pair were in their tent sleeping, as climbers only remove their crampons inside. While Warner has no immediate plans to return to K2, he’s not ruling it out.
“I’m a climber that’s what I do. It’s more than what I do -it’s my lifestyle.
‘‘It’s not like it’s a shock that someone died on a mountain. It’s not going to dramatically change how I view the sport,’’ he said. “If I did go back I’d would do a different route.’’
