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In December last year we reported ‘Nims’ Purja’s announcement of his plans to summit K2 this winter.
As a young man Purja joined the British Army mercenary regiment the Gurkhas, which is a feat in its own right with serious competition to get into the regiment among young Nepali men.
He then went a step further and was the first ever Gurkha to make it into the elite Special Boat Service (SBS) regiment.
He has since become a world leading mountaineer.
In 2019 he summited every mountain in the world of 8,000 metres and over – 14 of them – in six months and six days.
Whilst descending Everest on that expedition, he took a photo of the queue to summit Everest that became the most shared photograph of the mountain in history.
https://t.co/ZuNhdkv5Fi #k2winter
— Nirmal Purja MBE (@nimsdai) January 14, 2021
It took the best part of a month to get from civilisation to the summit.
After trekking for several days to basecamp, arriving on Boxing Day 2020, the three teams that would form the summit team set about building camps and fixing lines for the final climb.
On the 14th January they broke their first record – fixing lines up to 7,800 metres – the highest someone had ever been on K2 in winter without being killed.
They came down to the final camp and prepared for the assault.
We have lost everything including all our kits; sleeping bags, mattresses, heated shoe insoles, summit gloves/mittens, summit base layers, paragliding equipment, cooking equipment etc. I am devastated to be breaking this news. Now, I have to reassess and replan everything.
— Nirmal Purja MBE (@nimsdai) January 10, 2021
Though extremely well planned, there were severe setbacks on the expedition.
The biggest one for Team Nimsdai came on the 10th January when they returned to Camp 2 to prepare for the final assault.
They had set this up a few days before and were to add to it before the summit attempt.
Severe weather on the mountain had destroyed the camp and they had lost a lot of the vital equipment they needed including his paragliding gear for his dramatic planned descent.
Writing of the mess and setback, Purja said, “As you may know (or may not), I always have a back up plan for a back up plan. I am just a bit gutted about missing another summit window.”
It took a few days but they restored the camp and went on to conquer the mountain.
Losing a bit of gear was nothing to that of a rival team from Spain who had a fatality during the preparation for their own attempt to be the first team to make it to the top of K2 in winter.
Sergi Mingote was climbing above 7,000 metres when one of the Nepali team saw him fall via his GPS tracker on the same day as they took on the summit.
K2 took another soul – something the mountain does all too often it seems.
After Mount Annapurna, K2 is the second biggest killer of mountaineers in the world.
Three major factors make it such a killer:
- It is a hard mountain to climb with ice walls and traverses that would challenge the best even at lower levels
- Thanks to its size and location, it forms its own weather systems
- On the national border between Pakistan and China, it is one of the remotest mountains in the world without the infrastructure of Everest.
Everest is Easy by Comparison
A summit of Everest is a difficult largely because of its altitude.
The skills to tackle it are rather modest as mountains go.
K2 by comparison is just 200 metres shorter but has some incredibly challenging sections that must be conquered.
You need a very high skill level to take it on even without doing so in the ‘death zone’ where it is impossible to survive for a long period without supplemental oxygen.
This adds to the achievement of the Nepalis who had to be at a near perfect level of fitness even before their assault just to survive the low oxygen levels of the final assault.
On top of this they had to take on infamous sections such as ‘The Bottleneck’ that has killed many a climber over the years.
The Bottleneck is a 100 metre long couloir that has an incline of up to 60 degrees in some places, and is overhung by the summit’s icy seracs that have been known to collapse on climbers, knocking them off in the last major section of the assault on the summit.
Severe Weather
The weather on K2 is a beast that cannot be tamed.
First of all the temperatures, that get as ‘warm’ as minus 15C in winter at basecamp, can set back the unprepared.
Though just minus 15C at basecamp, on a warmer day the temperature can be minus 30C at the summit – as severe as you will see in the Antarctic.
Frostbite is a common problem and one that nearly everyone in the Nepali team had to some extent even in the best modern clothing.
Cold won’t blow you off the mountain though!
The mountain is known for its killer winds that have plucked many a mountaineer off its face.
As we’ve discussed, Purja’s team saw this with their camp being destroyed by 75mph winds wrecking their camp while they were replenishing it.
The weather is bad at the upper reaches of the mountain year round but in winter this goes up a notch and for many years K2 was viewed as being impossible to summit in winter.
Remote Location
Though Everest has a lot of good infrastructure to get to Basecamp, K2 is extremely remote.
The nearest town, Skardu, is 66 miles from the mountain.
This meant that the Nepali team had to hike for several days with 35kg packs carrying all their gear to the mountain.
You’d think they’d have a day off or two before going to work but arriving on 26th December they went straight to work on preparing to take on the summit attempt!
Given the ferocity of the mountain, one could say Nimsdai was taking the Mickey by planning to paraglide from the top in winter!
In a year of great darkness for the world this small band of Nepalese men have managed one of the last great feats of mountaineering.
It’s enough for the team to have not only been the first to summit in winter but to be the first to summit without oxygen in winter.
Perhaps it’s best the borderline insane idea of paragliding off the top can be saved for another team.
Given the well-known dark side of the mountain, not everyone who attempts to be the first might make it.
However, we wish whoever attempts that feat all the luck in the world as they will need it.
author's profile
Richard Shrubb
Richard is a keen day-distance walker and lives close to the South Dorset Ridgeway and South West Coast Path.
Best hikes to date include the Park de Ordessa in the Pyrenees, stretches of the Appalachian Trail, South West Coast Path and the Brecon Beacons.
Bucket list walks include:
