Hirotaka Takeuchi, the rescued Japanese climber, is now in hospital in Japan and making a good recovery. He suffered five broken ribs, crushed lumbar vertebrae and hip and internal injuries. He owes his life, not only to a huge amount of luck, but also to the fantastic multi-national rescue effort on the mountain; Ex-Formula One driver Ukyo Katayama at Base Camp; the Japanese Embassy; the personal intervention of Pakistan president, General Pervez Musharaff; and of course the skill and professionalism of the Pakistani army helicopter pilot.
And what of the rest of the team we left behind? Well, they made a bold attempt on Gasherbrum I – eventually reaching a high point of Camp 3. To be honest though, there was never any realistic chance of making the summit given such little time on the mountain, the weather and the difficult conditions. This was borne out by another climber, Mick Parker, who did manage to summit but described it as ‘hideously dangerous’, and the sad death of a strong and highly experienced Czech climber. Either way, I’m more than happy with my own decision to leave when I did. For me the line of ‘acceptable risk’ had been crossed.
Yet what is ‘acceptable risk’? In my view, when the likelihood of dying becomes a probability rather than a possibility, then that to me is the point of unacceptable risk. But of course the threshold of what is ‘possible’ and ‘probable’ is decidedly fuzzy, and further blurred by our own individual perceptions and experiences. I am in no doubt that to reach the summit of any of the world’s 8000m mountains a climber often has to push, and perhaps exceed, the limits of that very threshold – perceived or otherwise. Indeed, nowhere was this better typified than on the mighty K2 where, just a few kilometres from us on Gasherbrum II, the Shared Summits team summited against all the odds and survived to tell the tale – just.
There is an undeniably high inherent risk in climbing these big 8000m mountains, but equally there are ways in which we can at least try to manage and mitigate that risk – up to a point. Certainly, whichever way you choose to look at it, I’m a firm believer in the words of elite high altitude mountaineer Ed Viesturs, the first American to climb all fourteen 8000m peaks and 6x Everest summiteer:
“Getting to the top is optional. Getting back down is mandatory.”
