Jan. 23, 2021
K2, the second highest mountain in the world.Credit.De Agostini, via Getty Images
It’s not often that a team of climbers attempts K2, the “Savage Mountain,” in winter.
Before this season, the world’s second-highest mountain, first climbed in 1954, had been tried only six times in the coldest months. Each effort ended in failure. Even so, last month two expeditions of Nepali climbers converged on the Godwin Austen Glacier in a remote corner of Pakistan to attempt the feat.
Neither of the groups was there to guide wealthy Western clients to the top and then take back seats to their accomplishments, as Nepalis in general and ethnic Sherpa in particular often do as the hired help. They were climbing for themselves. Both teams made it together to the 28,251-foot summit last Saturday, making a statement of teamwork and selflessness for Indigenous Himalayan climbers.
Left: Dawa Tenji Sherpa, Mingma G, Dawa Temba Sherpa and Pem Chiri Sherpa. From bottom left: Mingma David Sherpa, Mingma Tenzi Sherpa, Nirmal Purja and Geljen Sherpa. (Not pictured: Kilu Pemba Sherpa and Sona Sherpa.
Kathmandu: At around noon on Saturday, the climbers inched into the infamous passage called the Bottleneck on K2, the second-tallest mountain in the world and one never before conquered in winter.
The sky was clear, the wind manageable and the summit just beyond this final and most perilous stretch.
If they could navigate the Bottleneck, the team of 10 Nepalese climbers, led by Nirmal Purja, 37, who is known as Nimsdai, would likely become the first to climb K2 in winter. But Purja knew it was best to ignore the history at his frostbitten fingertips, and focus on taking one step at a time.