Carla perez mountaineer8/13/2023 He describes the moment of clearing the ice wall as when “I knew I wasn’t going to die,” and the emotional release of attaining K2’s summit as a clash between “Wow, I’m really happy, and wow, I probably need to get the fuck out of here.”īut we can comprehend the expedition’s facts. They exist on a separate plane, if only for a relatively short time. ![]() It might not be possible to empathize with climbers like Ballinger fully. They spent a chunk of that time in a zone called The Bottleneck, beneath a 400-foot tall ice wall that Ballinger says is “constantly dropping blocks that are anywhere between like, microwave-sized and cabin-sized.” What took Purja’s team, with oxygen, four and a half hours, required more than 11 for Ballinger, Perez and Mena. On July 24, both teams (“and one random Iranian, no-oxygen climber, just a crusher”) summited. Ballinger describes it as a “dream scenario.” “Wind is often bad in the mountains, but in this case, it turned out to be good.” The gusts had the effect of removing every flake of the high snow barrier that forced back every other climber on the mountain. “It was blowing probably 80 miles an hour plus above 8,000 meters,” Ballinger says. The teams joined forces, with Purja’s oxygen-using crew placing ropes and Ballinger’s group carrying gear and providing support.Īnd then the wind picked up. “He was like a fresh injection of energy,” Ballinger says. Purja’s goal was to tick off K2 as part of a marathon mission to climb every mountain over 8,000 meters (roughly 26,247 feet, there are 14 of them) in under seven months. And someone new showed up: a Nepali climber and former Gurkha in the British Army named Nirmal “Nims” Purja (you’ve probably seen the viral photo he snapped of the lineup at the top of Everest). The next day those teams declared the season over and left.īut Ballinger stayed. Ballinger and Perez and Mena watched through binoculars as one team after another made 50 inconsequential feet of progress before retreating. “Teams were coming back from going up and saying, ‘There’s no way anyone can climb this mountain this year,'” Ballinger recalls. They began to test routes and make acclimatization rotations (“the goal is basically to go as high as you can to where your body’s really suffering, and that stimulates a chemical response to build new red blood cells,” Ballinger explains.)Īs the window for climbing the mountain narrowed, teams working with oxygen began their ultimate push and didn’t return with good news. The conditions spurred Ballinger and his team - including Carla Perez, a mountain guide and the first South American woman to summit Everest without oxygen, and another Ecuadorian climber named Esteban “Topo” Mena - to get to work. Not to mention that he had contracted a stomach parasite on the 10-day trek to Base Camp. Snow depths were also at a 30-year high and, because of warming temperatures, it “was just falling off the mountains everywhere,” Ballinger says. Amongst Pakistani high altitude workers, Sherpa and foreigners, there were roughly 200 climbers on the mountain in 2019, a record high that doubled the previous figure. The K2 endeavor began, even as mountaineering standards go, with uncertainty. Ballinger had previously topped Everest without oxygen in 2017, a feat he says “pushed me so far.” “There’s no way anyone can climb this mountain this year.” ![]() Roughly one of every four climbers who attempt K2 perishes, compared to approximately one in 15 for Everest.Ĭlimbing the mountain without supplemental oxygen increases the risk dramatically, so while Ballinger seemingly decided to tackle K2 in the same way one might set a plan to attend a matinee, he didn’t do so lightly. It also has less infrastructure than Everest, making it harder to get to (Ballinger’s eventual journey involved planes, a Jeep ride through Pakistan and a 10-day trek). ![]() Its nickname is “the Savage Mountain,” and it’s both more technical and less predictable than Mt. It was during such an affair on a deck in Mendoza, Argentina that Ballinger, after previously dismissing the idea, decided he wanted to give K2 a try.Īt 28,251 feet tall, K2 is the world’s second-tallest mountain. Instead of talking about the dumb thing he might’ve said last night at a bar, or how many reruns of The Office he recently plowed through, he’s more likely to chat about slightly less casual topics, like climbing the world’s tallest mountains without oxygen. Adrian Ballinger’s brunch conversations aren’t like yours or mine.
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