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Camera B.

Damn, you're good at this!

Now you have the chance

to become the first person in the world to go up there, in winter.

To go to the top of K2.

When you're going on a trip like this, do you think much about death?

When I go on a trip like this,

then naturally death is very close.

And…

you just hope to be able to stand,

how would you say it… upright.

And even just proud during that moment.

Hello?

I'm not dead yet!

But should I check your pulse?

I know there are risks in this sport.

But as much as he loves to do something with the family

and be in the norm, he needs to…

go and live on the edge.

We have quite a big family

with six children.

But at home, it's like his mind is, like, spinning.

Sometimes it's like…

when people do great things,

it comes at the cost of the family who are standing by him.

But mountaineers get hooked on the thrill of summiting.

One of the first mountains I climbed

was Mont Blanc, in 2011.

I remember I stood at the top.

I was just waiting for some feeling to come.

But I felt nothing.

It was only when I was descending and I posted five pictures on Facebook,

that's when it came.

I'm a sport journalist.

I report on mountaineering expeditions.

The time of pioneers, the time of adventures is gone.

These days, thousands of people flock to the Himalayas every season.

Posting their stories on Instagram.

Especially Everest. It's completely crazy.

So, this is where we sleep tonight apparently.

But K2 in Pakistan was different.

It's such a dangerous mountain.

So, John Snorri announcing his intention to summit K2 in winter,

that really was a story.

You have a lot of time to think, hiking all day,

enjoying the beauty.

It's indescribable.

There are 14 peaks around the world

above 8,000 meters.

Thirteen of them had been climbed in winter,

except for one:

K2.

The Savage Mountain.

K2 had been on my radar for a very long time.

You know, my job is to sniff out stories.

But I still never felt like I was quite ready for K2.

You know, one in four die who summit.

That was the old statistic.

And, you know, K2 is hard enough in the summertime.

Completely deadly in wintertime.

For decades, particularly the Polish and the Russians

have been attempting to climb K2 in winter.

There were multiple attempts and none of them were successful.

This is the holy grail for high altitude mountaineers.

There are no more historic records.

K2 winter was the last first.

Okay, I'll do a lap if the GoPro works.

Okay.

Okay.

We are the only ones up here,

the only seven people camping on K2.

Here are our supply stations.

Our stock station.

Lots of supplies and stuff like that, we're very well stocked.

We can be stuck here for three whole months

without needing anyone.

This is actually our second day.

The first day, crazy weather came and the mess tent blew away.

Mohsin, our chef

and one other person,

they were in the kitchen

when the kitchen just simply blew away.

Look, look, look! Avalanche!

Do you think it'll reach?

And here is another one! Look!

My God!

Most people are under an illusion that there's safety at base camp.

Because you got manpower

that's preparing the tents, the food, the water.

But the reality is, it's freezing.

Like, some days, it's minus 50.

Right, and in the thin air, your body is slowly shutting down.

So everybody there is on borrowed time.

John Snorri had hired two climbing companions.

Ali Muhammad Sadpara from Pakistan

and Ali's son, Sajid.

When you are alone in the mountain, you get, like, vulnerable.

But with Ali and Sajid,

when they start to climb together, everybody got so close.

John, what are you thinking about wind here?

The wind is too strong.

- I went out here to pee… - Yeah.

…before my pee hit the ground, it was frozen.

Yes.

So, the situation is like that.

- Yeah. - So, we have to wait and see.

- Yeah. - All right.

- A, B, C. - A, B, C.

Can you give me a towel?

I think Ali was a little bit like John.

A jolly guy, you know?

Whoa!

They had a good time together.

Hey, this is our shower. The best shower.

In our culture, kids are afraid of their father,

afraid of their scolding.

Wow, very nice.

But my father was like a friend.

He began to be seen as a national hero,

but even after his world class achievements,

he remained humble and simple.

My father and John Snorri were of the same age and thought alike.

They were like friends.

John was so happy about this friendship.

I think it was something that he didn't expect.

Exercise. Yes.

Loving this exercise.

We've arrived, we'll stay for the night,

then go down to base camp.

It was a rough trek, getting up here.

The trio!

The main guy.

They were alone on the mountain

and…

everything was good.

If the next two days are good, we plan to go up to camp two,

spend the night in camp two and see if we can do some of the lines

on the way up to camp three.

And spend the night back in base camp.

But then the other team came.

Nimsdai, here?

We had no idea that Nims was about to arrive

with a Nepali Sherpa team.

Sherpas are a strong team. Nims brought a perfect team.

Nimsdai was a Himalayan rock star.

…here, in the studio,

explorer Nirmal Purja, better known as Nims--

Nims, just arriving in Kathmandu

after setting a world record many didn't think possible.

Nobody believed that this could be done.

He had a military career within the United Kingdom

and he was a British citizen.

And then had the vision to do something big

and then came the idea of breaking the speed record

to summit all the 14 eight-thousanders.

So the fastest time was seven years

and then I said, "I will do that in seven months."

- That's insane, man. - Yeah.

He had used very untraditional methods.

Like the use of helicopters

that can take you from one base camp to another.

And climbing, not just with one sherpa supporting you,

but a whole team working for you.

So, when Nimsdai joined the winter K2 game,

he was there to win it

in a 100-percent Nepalese team.

Nowadays, nearly everybody has their own, personal camera operator on an expedition.

Hi, nice to meet you.

You too.

And, of course, so had Nims.

The first time I saw John and Ali,

I took these photos of them.

John Snorri was probably kind of bummed.

He'd arrived, I don't know, a month before we had.

So he'd been shivering his tits off long before we even set foot in Pakistan.

And suddenly, there were quite a lot of people on the mountain.

I mean, Nims doesn't have many fans in the mountaineering world anyway

and especially when he rocks up to try and do what you're doing…

I think some people kind of wished he wasn't there.

Who're they?

Nims' Sherpas.

Wow! It's like a…

It's like a big city.

There's Nimsdai!

Who? Where? This guy?

This guy? Here?

Ali and Nims had known each other and spent time in the mountains before.

Nepal and Pakistan have a lot in common.

They're both very poor countries for the most part.

Pakistan is not quite developed as Nepal.

So the mountaineering industry there is definitely a little bit behind.

How many are there with you?

One, John, and he is absolutely fine.

He is a very nice person.

- How's it going, Ali? - Yeah, everything is good.

Now we are-- 24, 25 days we are here.

In base camp, yeah.

Inshallah, our plan is go…

If wind is little bit going down, we go tomorrow.

Camp one. Day after, camp two… then we will see.

They'll be fixing camp two up.

Yeah.

We are planning to go to camp two tomorrow.

- Seriously? - It's no problem at all.

You need a little bit of rest, no?

Nimsdai's team rests when we die.

One should be a bit careful in the winter…

After a very rapid four-day trekking to base camp,

I felt like that was…

maybe where I should chill for a few days

and let my white, skinny ass catch up with the Sherpa.

But this was the last opportunity

to get a first winter ascent on an eight-thousander

and Nims wanted to be the first to summit.

As did many others.

We're here trekking to K2 base camp in the Karakoram.

The whole mountaineering scene

was kind of getting really itchy feet through COVID.

Practically no one here.

And then suddenly the first big expedition to be open to Westerners

was K2 winter.

That's right. A few tents back there, that's K2 base camp. We did it.

It's been a great journey.

First leg, done. We're at K2 base camp.

Potentially my home for the next couple months.

I was coming off the back of two very historic world firsts.

In my solo crossing of Antarctica and my row across the Drake Passage.

Welcome to the show, Colin. It's so good to see you.

This is a guy who walked across Antarctica.

- How many days did it take you? - 54 days.

- By yourself? - By myself.

Thank you very much.

And so I was already kind of, a little bit on the lookout

for, like, other world firsts

or other, sort of, pioneering expeditions that I could take on.

I appreciate you guys having me.

I feel I have more energy now, just--

- Let's go! - Being around you.

First ascents in mountaineering are a big deal.

I wasn't alive in the early 1950s

when Mount Everest and K2 were summited for the first time.

It was just kinda like, "I missed it. I guess I wasn't born in the right era."

So I was like, "How can I leave my mark?

Where can I do something first or original?"

National Geographic was like, "Whoever climbs K2 in the winter

will claim the last great prize in mountaineering."

You know, those are big words, obviously.

Hands down, K2 is the most dangerous mountain in the world to climb.

There's a bunch of vertical faces dropping off, you know,

thousands and thousands of feet.

So you can't make a single mistake.

It's like, you fall and you fall directly down the entire route.

It's hard enough in summer, but in winter, it's the toughest season.

It's the coldest, it's the darkest…

It's just a brutal situation.

And then I had just thought, intuitively, winter, there's just gonna be deeper snow

and potential for more avalanches.

We did see some avalanches over there.

But actually, in winter,

the winds are so high on the upper part of the mountain,

it basically just gets wind-scoured.

And the winds were so violent that they were just dislodging rocks.

Rock!

So thirty or forty times per day,

you've got anything from the size of a pebble like this

to, you know, massive rocks this size flying down the mountain right at you.

K2 was the last unclimbed peak in the winter,

so I knew this is my last chance.

I was so close on Nanga Parbat in 2016 and now it's only K2 left.

I've been waiting for the sunrise,

counting the minutes until the sun comes.

Up there, in winter, I never felt so alone.

Even if you're in a team, you cannot look after somebody else.

Everybody goes for his or her own life.

The crazy thing was, on K2, I thought there will be very few people.

And then I arrive there, "Oh, my! Holy shit!

Where am I going right now?"

Because it seems to me a big expedition.

What had happened was

a company called Seven Summit Treks had realized

a lot of people are interested in this project

and so they were like, "We should put together,

essentially, a commercial expedition."

And so, everyone that goes over there

ends up paying for a Seven Summit Treks permit.

I met Sergi and JP.

They were such strong mountaineers.

And I felt immediately connected.

I don't want to pitch a tent.

Especially to JP, because he seemed so beautiful to me.

But K2 winter is really something…

fucking hard, you know?

And I think that some of the people in the base camp

were not aware about this fact.

Quite the party going on here. That's for sure.

So half the group were experienced climbers.

The other half were novices.

I think those people had no idea what they got into.

- Like Christmas! - Winter expedition. K2 winter expedition.

The company made a decision to go to K2 because it was COVID time.

We couldn't do anything else, basically.

All of a sudden Pakistan was open.

So going to K2 was a chance for the business to survive.

I saw on Facebook that Seven Summits agency from Nepal,

they're doing K2 winter expedition.

I wrote to them, "What's the price?"

They immediately wrote, "Oh, we are starting doing your visa now."

Seven and a half hours.

I didn't expect it to be that much.

To be honest, it would have been better

if there's only 10 people on the mountain, instead of, like, 60 people in total.

That's kind of crazy for K2 winter.

But the fun part about my job is that people come from everywhere.

All different backgrounds.

- Can be a housewife… - Hello!

…can be an athlete, can be a business owner.

I get around a lot,

and I try to travel around the world as much as possible.

For me, it's important to experience adventures

so that life isn't boring.

Just lying around at a hotel or on the beach

would be far too dull for me.

I noticed they were planning to attempt K2,

and we arranged everything from there.

I was literally sitting at home in my pajamas

and I'm watching all these people on social media, show up in Pakistan.

Right, it's a commercialized endeavor at this point.

This was a fuck-up by Seven Summits,

which Arnold was a part of.

Because if you commercialize K2,

the way you've commercialized Mount Everest,

bad things are going to happen.

And that's in the summertime. Let alone the winter.

This is how we're doing the expedition.

Let's see how it goes.

We have the tent here on the edge as usual.

Here are our 700-meter lines that we carried up here.

John was disappointed.

It's, like, a really difficult expedition.

So, he had hoped he would be alone.

But with all the other climbers…

the expedition was totally different.

Now it was a competition.

And…

he wanted to conquer it as much as them.

Nims and co, they are going to come up soon.

Then they have to camp somewhere.

Finding space for tents will be very difficult.

Then there comes a group of 50 people from Seven Summit.

It should be possible to put one tent there,

and I know you can put one there, so two people can sleep there.

This will be something.

Hi.

Hi, sweetie. What's up?

All good, and you?

Everything's okay.

Yeah?

What's up?

There are so many people up in the camps.

Yes.

There are so many people here.

I know all of this is really tough

but you have to try to be strong somehow.

Just be smart in this competition.

Yes, I know. I have to be smart.

Okay, sweetie. I love you.

I love you too, sweetie.

Okay, good night.

- Speak tomorrow. - Yes.

Bye.

Traditionally on the route, there are five camps above base camp.

Camp one's roughly there.

Camp two, up into there.

Camp three, back in there.

Then, backside of that, Bottleneck to the summit.

And that is very common.

You see the same thing on most of the fourteen 8,000-meter peaks.

Because most of these mountains can't be climbed in a single push.

Climbing up!

You actually need to climb up and down the mountain a few times.

You need to climb up to camp one, camp two, camp three,

stock your camps with gear and supplies as well as get acclimatized.

So, get your body used to the thin air.

And then you just go back to base camp.

How's it going?

Hot…

hard…

and I feel alive!

One of the main things was how is the rope gonna be fixed

to the top of that mountain?

When we first got to base camp,

John Snorri and Ali had already been up on the mountain,

and they had already fixed some ropes up there,

but actually no one had put ropes above camp two.

And it became very clear

this was such a dangerous mountain to climb…

that everyone was there to try to get the first ascent,

everyone was racing to be first,

and everyone realized, actually, the best case scenario for safety,

as well as potential success,

was for us to kind of all collude and do this together.

It was kind of like the United Nations.

And our plan was to just all, you know, climb this mountain as one.

I mean, you should speak to the Sherpas about that.

Why?

Because no one wants to be the bad guy, right?

But the competition was there.

It was a competition, like a football match.

Until now, there has been no Nepalese record

in winter mountain climbing.

So if, in the winter K2 trip, the Nepalese got there first,

we could have the chance to raise our flag.

So that was very important for us Nepalese.

Guys, this is, I think…

25-year-old Chivas.

'Cause today is New Year's Eve, we need to celebrate.

That night it was New Year's Eve for the Westerners.

But the Nepalese team had started speaking and planning privately.

If it's a foreigner, I'd rather fucking die

but I won't let them get ahead. I'm being straight with you.

That night was the beginning of a change of strategy.

Which became much more nationalistic.

What I didn't know

was that the expedition co-leader of the Seven Summit Trek team was there.

I work for a company owned by Sherpas.

Sherpas were really walking around barefooted at nothing, like 20 years ago.

And they saw tourists, and they knew it was smart

to become a climber, and they all worked their way up from a porter.

I think Nepalese should take this summit.

Yeah.

Don't wait too long.

Because if you wait one more week, then our team, there are strong climbers,

and they're gonna take it. You guys should take it.

The Nepalese should take this summit.

So the Western climbers,

might have been told all the Sherpas were there for them.

You know, to help them.

But it would actually have been sad, if a guy who just paid money

got to the top first.

That's also my opinion, even though I was leading those people.

All I want is a record for Nepal. More than anything.

Rest assured it will be Nepal on top.

Until we fix the ropes ahead, the foreigners can't go.

I hope none of them get there first. I hope it's only Nepalese.

So, brother, we are on the same page.

Here in the mountains, our brothers have worked so hard,

but when people talk about a winter ascent you hear a fucking white person's name.

Happy New Year.

Happy New Year.

My first job was to collect yak dung to make briquettes for fuel.

So the difference between my story and theirs

is that of hardship.

I had a different life.

So it was never our plan to summit together.

A few days later, they had a meeting, the Nepalese and John and Ali,

where they discussed the summit plan.

So John called me and told me about this meeting.

So, is it just you with the Nepalis and Pakistanis?

Yes.

No other foreigner?

No one else, no.

It was like a negotiation.

John and Ali had already brought 700-meter rope up

and it was agreed on that the Nepalese would take it and use it.

So in return they would go all together to achieve the summit.

We are working together.

That is a huge step forward

and in the next window, we can try to reach the summit.

Yes.

Honestly, this project is for our country.

There are also foreigners here, so I won't share everything.

But let me be clear.

If there are any foreigners behind us, I will pull up the ropes.

You can blame it on me.

Remember that we're all Nepalese mountaineers.

On this occasion, it'll be for our country, okay?

So, that is it.

And we're done. Thank you, brother.

So the weather window they agreed on with the Sherpas

was around the 16th.

- Sunny there, John? - Yeah.

Lemon juice.

So, in the morning, they were waiting for the call from Nims

to summit together.

John Snorri, five star hotel!

On the radios in base camp

everyone's like, "Well, where are the Nepalese?"

And at first they were like,

"Oh, yeah, we're just bringing gear up there. You know, we'll see.

Tomorrow looks like it's gonna be bad weather."

Just kind of this friendly, you know, camaraderie.

Camp 2 for base camp, over.

But later on we noticed that Nims and the Nepalese had gone quiet.

Complete radio silence.

Camp 2, over.

Camp 2, over.

In the past, they had been pretty open, talking on those channels.

Then all of a sudden, they kind of disappeared from those channels.

So it was kind of this question mark of,

"Are those guys going for it?"

Camp 2, base camp, base camp.

My father said,

"I have known them for years.

We have done many missions and summits together.

If they have a plan, they will definitely share it with us."

But then we realized that they planned the summit secretly.

The Nepalese had started the summit,

but it was too late for John.

They already missed that window.

John just couldn't believe it was happening.

He was angry,

because he thought they had an agreement.

No wind, huh?

It was over.

The Nepalese wanted to take the summit for their nation.

It was clearly the plan.

I could see the disappointment on their faces.

They were quite shocked.

Later that night, the Nepalese started coming down.

I felt really sorry for Ali and for John,

because they fixed the ropes and so they expected

to be part of this summit push, and they were just excluded.

Congrats.

Many of those guys are, you know, some of the best climbers in the world.

And they have a genetic disposition

because they've, you know, for generations and generations lived at high altitude,

to be really strong in the Himalayas, which is incredible.

But Ali and John had been, kind of, left behind.

And of course there was a part of me that was like,

"It would've been awesome if we could've all been up there together."

There were many Westerners who were happy for us

when we returned from summiting.

But there were some who were jealous of us.

It made me upset.

This was about 10 times harder than any mountain I've climbed.

I got frostbite on my cheeks, so I was also really scared.

Very few people achieve a world record in life.

It's something I'm very proud of.

Really the problem is

that normally the Nepalis are friendly and helpful

and help the Westerners get to the top.

But this was really an expedition where there was none of that.

And there was no way

that Nims was gonna agree to taking any Westerners to the summit.

Like, when we were in base camp,

Nims had told me to pack for five days' climbing,

which would have included a summit.

But then, once we got to camp three, Nims said, "You need to go down."

So I was so pissed off.

That said, in all these old climbing films

it's always the Westerners that turn the Sherpa around at camp four,

so it's a glorious Western summit

and no one needs to mention the Sherpa working for them. So…

Part of me thinks that Nims just did a reverse twist of that.

All 8,000-meter mountains are climbed thanks to the work of the Sherpa.

But in terms of recognition they were always last.

Congratulations, man. Well deserved.

I met this U.S. Marine once, who gave me this Bible quote,

"The first shall be last, and the last first."

I don't know who came up with that saying, but it's an absolute banger.

It was super hard for us to be happy for the Sherpa.

Because the next day in the morning,

me and my cameraman, Oswald,

we were going down from camp two,

and that's when the accident happened.

At some point, I heard some noise coming down.

I thought, "This has to be, like, a huge rock."

And I just grabbed, the fastest I could,

like, the GoPro that I had in my internal pocket.

In my down suit.

Somehow I'm happy

that I didn't record the moment when you see the body.

But you can see that the gloves,

mitten gloves are still, like, falling down.

You saw what happened?

- You saw what happened? - I don't know.

You will go down to see what's happened. Yes? Okay.

I went after Juan Pablo.

The closer I was getting, I understood that there is a person laying down

on the floor, on the rocks.

And then Tamara said, "It's Sergi."

Sergi Mingote was perhaps the most experienced climber

on the mountain.

He was climbing with his friend, Juan Pablo Mohr.

Normally mountaineers, they're a little bit more closed.

A bit of ego.

But with those guys, I experienced completely the opposite thing, you know.

And especially Sergi gave me this feeling of, "I am safe."

When he fell down…

I was so under shock, that my body is just functioning.

There is no emotion allowed.

You know, it's a super absurd situation.

You have, like, the body of Sergi just left there in a sleeping bag.

But then, like, you have all these people surrounding him,

trying to do some recordings.

For me, in this moment, I was thinking, the first ascent is gone.

Like, the "prize" of being first is gone.

And now Sergi, one of the most experienced guys out there…

No one really knows what happened.

Possibly he got hit by a rock.

And he's dead.

It's time to go home.

When Sergi died, I really felt like the odds were not in our favor.

And to continue this climb was actually not a good idea.

Especially with all the novice climbers.

Like, "Look, now this experienced guy, he fell down.

What's gonna happen to the rest?" You know?

Later, I was just sitting down and I was crying.

And in this moment I said, "Okay, this expedition, for me, is over.

I just want to go home now."

Yeah, first thing tomorrow, everyone was going home.

The Nepali team climbed the mountain.

Sergi died.

It was, like, no point to be here.

But then the next thing that happens is these helicopters arrive,

full of high-ranking military officers.

The Nepalese have successfully summited K2 in winter,

and the Pakistani military came to celebrate.

The military who came with the helicopter said,

"How is this possible that the Nepali are going to the top,

and Ali and John are here already one month before,

and now they have no summit?"

So it was, like, the hero of Pakistan failed.

And for me immediately… I saw Ali completely different.

He was a bit nervous of this tension,

so I think he was not sure what to do now.

I told my father that the first winter summit is over.

There are weather changes in February.

February is always risky because of bad weather conditions and very high winds.

So doing the summit during this period will be too risky.

We should give up because someone has already done the summit now.

Even the kitchen staff realized we shouldn't push on.

My family, especially my mother, were very worried

and said it is quite late, so come back home.

But that's when we heard that a man named Elia is arriving to make a film.

He will be making a film about us climbing K2.

The rule that I set for myself, essentially

was that if I was gonna take on K2 I wanted to find the right story.

And even though Nims had summited,

I'm not gonna lie to you, on K2 in winter,

you'd be a fool to think that nothing else is going to happen.

And the story that I wanted to tell was the story of the underdogs.

I'd been sitting at home trying to figure out how to get myself over to Pakistan.

And, in the end,

the way that I pitched this to the military,

was that I wanna tell a Pakistani story.

We have your national hero mountaineer, and his son, who are on this mountain.

And I wanna help raise their star.

And the military, the government, were very interested in that.

A lot of people are extremely poor in Pakistan.

Tourism is a way out.

So, from their perspective,

Ali's story was an opportunity to hopefully inspire people

to come to Pakistan and see it all for themselves.

The pressure became really high for Ali.

From all sides. From the media,

from the army that shows up, the filming guy that shows up.

I don't know exactly what they told him, but it was very clear.

Ali simply had to summit.

To show that the Pakistanis are as good as the Sherpas.

Do you feel like maybe you're very close to your dream right now?

Inshallah, yeah. We are very strong this year.

We are very well acclimatized.

And John also very strong with us, and we do our best.

There was so much pressure, from the eyes, from everybody.

Watching the team, if they're gonna finish this or not.

And go for it.

I said to him, "It's almost over, you will come home soon."

But he decided

he could be the first Icelander to climb K2 in wintertime.

So there was still a chance to make mountaineering history, actually.

Now, what do you think about the camp?

Getting empty, huh?

- Yeah, it is. - How many people left this morning?

This morning maybe 14, 15 people left, yeah.

Yeah.

Inshallah, we also go with heli.

No, no, no. After we summit,

- we stay here celebrate. - Yes.

- In base camp. - In base camp.

Ali and John had been there for a couple months at this point.

And so they decide, "We're going for it."

The rest of us had planned to leave.

You see avalanche over there?

Yeah.

But when one person decides they're going for it,

there becomes this, sort of, questioning of groupthink.

And I remember sitting with JP and Tamara, being like,

"Is this expedition over, or do we stay?"

In the days after Sergi's accident,

I spoke with JP about this.

Of course he was very sad.

But I said, "Okay, mountaineering is a discovery not only of the mountain,

it is a discovery of yourself.

There is no better place to work on these feelings than here."

Somehow I felt

like Juan Pablo and Tamara were, like, the most experienced.

And they were, like, important persons to shape also my opinion.

And when they told me we can continue, I felt, "Okay, I'm just Oswald."

Like, I'm a guy that was there just to film Magdalena.

Like, I wasn't, like, a guy that climbed eight-thousanders,

that dealt with death so many times.

A few days after Sergi died, the whole atmosphere changed again.

Most of the climbers somehow convinced themselves to stay on the mountain.

I decided I'm just gonna do some damage control.

I hope nobody makes a mistake, but this is madness.

Hello, Jan. This is John Snorri.

Then there came news of another possible summit window.

Do you have, like, a timetable of the wind,

when the wind will start to slow down?

I understand that, but I'm try--

I am trying to understand.

Yeah, you don't understand me.

Jan, could you se--

Don't speak any English.

Okay, Jan. I wait-- You send me now. You send me now. Okay?

Bye-bye.

He don't speak any English.

Stuck.

This is short window.

Our weather man says it's too short.

But we're gonna use it.

Because we are-- We can.

We can.

If we couldn't, I would say no.

But we can use it. And we will try to use it. We will use it.

I might even use it.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

I think this is our shot.

- Very good. - Yeah.

Excellent.

Yes.

This window looks short,

but I guess that's the way it is in winter.

And I'd like to remind everybody on the timings.

It's for your own safety.

So I think I told you guys six and a half hours roughly to camp one.

Five hours from camp one to two.

So I give that speech in basecamp the night before everybody sets off.

I tell them the weather window is pretty marginal.

And I tell people very clearly the turnaround times.

If somehow, on the way,

you're not gonna make the timings, maybe it's not your day,

and maybe you should forget about the summit.

Everybody knows this is extremely dangerous.

Whether you're gonna take that risk or not

in my opinion, was up to the member, not to me.

The day we made the decision we are going up,

my Sherpa told me that before the Nepali team went to the summit,

Nims was talking things like cutting the ropes,

so that nobody could follow them and do the summit.

I didn't say anything

because I could not imagine people who are really able to do that.

But, at the same time, I know Nims.

I know how he behaves, and what he shows.

Don't judge him, or anybody, from social media,

because this is just a creation.

- Nice morning. - Oh, yeah.

See you up there.

See you up there, brother. Take care.

Take care. Be careful of the rocks.

I think you're on the mountain.

Yeah, see you on the mountain.

It's all gotten very real.

Like, we're actually attempting a real summit push on K2 in the winter.

JP and Tamara had decided, "Hey, let's climb together."

You know, I was starting to notice the sort of inkling

of a romantic something happening between the two of them.

Although it wasn't, you know, super openly discussed

it was pretty obvious that they at least had a growing love for each other.

When I decided to start with JP towards the summit,

I felt really happy that I was in the team with him and so on.

But then he was always in front and I think he was a bit angry.

Because of my pace, let's say.

I understood that,

but then at the same time I was asking myself

why I needed to fall in love. Why all this, you know?

Here we are at camp one.

JP, tell me something.

We are motivated…

for summit.

I don't know,

we will see.

No pressure, no pressure.

Pressure.

It's hard going on that kind of expedition, because it's a pressure.

And now the pressure was even bigger.

But that night, I was really so weak.

So, yeah, sickness stopped me.

But probably it saved my life too.

At that point, none of us had been above camp two.

And so this would be the highest any of us had been up on the mountain.

- Okay, Ali, John. - Yeah?

How are you guys doing?

Inshallah, our plan is go tomorrow, camp three.

Like 7,200 meters.

And we will see. The summit push.

- Sajid? - Yeah.

- Excited? - Summit, yeah.

K2 in winter. Very excited.

- Yeah. - All right.

The route between camp two and camp three,

is the most technical, challenging part of the route.

You need to use, you know, your crampons on rocks,

which is just super awkward.

With steep ice.

It's blue ice so you need to be,

the whole day, on the front point of the crampons.

It's very difficult for your body.

And you can't really sit still for very long or you're gonna freeze.

Fuck.

There's been, you know, all sorts of stories of, you know,

tents with no people inside getting blown off the mountain.

Tents full of gear. Tents with people inside

getting blown off the mountain.

And Seven Summits were bringing clients into that environment.

Who are not qualified to be there in the first place.

Today I understand why for so many years…

no people climbed, in winter, K2.

Amazingly difficult. Amazingly difficult.

I'm filming this and I'm just thinking, "This is really messed up."

- Thank you, Elia. - Okay.

Thank you so much.

I mean, it was clear to me

that none of these clients were going to get to camp three.

That's like going to the moon.

I mean, you're on the edge of space.

You know, the blood doesn't flow the way that it flows at sea level.

Everyone is compromised.

You're almost in the death zone at that point.

Your body is deteriorating faster than it can recover.

Like, it's hard to walk, it's hard to think, it's hard to breathe,

it's exhausting just putting your boots on.

I don't have footage of this, because I just wasn't capable.

So I set up a camp further down the mountain,

to allow myself to recover.

We're here at camp three. It's been quite a day.

But, here now. Gonna get inside the tent and warm up,

and try to make some good decisions.

This is camp three!

We arrived at camp three.

We're in the tent, JP's in his tent beside me with Tamara,

and then there's sort of a clear moment which is like,

"Hey, this is the last night's sleep before this next kind of mega push.

I need to get as much rest as I can in camp three."

Change socks, melt snow and turn it into water.

Fill up all of our water bottles, and then continue on.

And then the sun goes down.

And, you know, it goes from cold to ridiculously cold.

The sun went away and it was becoming so cold in this shadow.

And I felt that the whole--

The cold is going into my shoes, and it was like a monster.

You need really to think, "Okay, do I have everything?

Are my shoes dry? Are my boots okay?"

It's the holy time to prepare for the summit.

Ali and John arrive.

And I'm thinking to myself, "Well, we all made it up here.

And everyone else must have just gotten too late in the day and realized,

'Hey, I'm turning around.'"

But then, long after dark,

I start hearing these voices outside of my tent.

And I'm like, "Oh, my God, they're still climbing?"

That whole Seven Summits expedition,

just took, how long, 12 hours or something to get here?

I couldn't believe it.

I arrived sometime during the night.

I don't know if it was around midnight or 2am. I have no idea.

I felt strong and in good shape, so why should I have turned around?

And then I start hearing people saying,

"No, you have the tent. No, you have the tent.

No, you have the tent."

Like, they're all thinking the other person is carrying their tent.

And all of a sudden,

head after head after head starts popping in my tent,

"Colin, can I come inside? Can I come inside? Can I come inside?"

This is a complete disaster.

On the radio, I start to hear Colin yelling.

And I thought, "Well, if this is what's unfolding,

let me at least capture this."

I want to be on the record,

please record me saying this.

I am very worried about people's health and safety.

There are many people up here with no tent,

we're at 7,600 on K2 in the middle of the night in winter.

He was informing me that there were no tents,

and his tent was the only tent there.

And slowly other people started to arrive, and started filling up his tent.

I'm very, very worried about many people's health and safety,

and that is because of breakdown in the organization.

No tents up here is unacceptable.

Hi Colin, this is Arnold.

I understand your situation completely.

We're trying to turn around people

but at the moment people are refusing and that's causing a huge problem.

Some people took more than double the time that I told them to take

in the speech in base camp.

And then on the way up, we told people to turn around.

And nobody listened, everybody just kept going.

So everybody ended up in that camp three, with not enough tents.

And then, yeah, what can you say, there was chaos.

Arnold says, had people have respected those turnaround times,

that this wouldn't have been an issue in the first place.

And the problem with that argument, from my point of view,

is that, well, if that's your argument and that's what you're relying on,

what would've happened if they would've made their turnaround times?

They would still be in the same situation.

So it's just, like, admit that you made a major mistake here.

Admit that you should have never allowed people

to ascend to camp three,

without having camp three properly stocked and prepared.

Arnold, we're in a legitimately bad situation right now.

Why are their sherpas not carrying tents?

At that point, they said,

"Oh, well, the Nepalese were up here, and they left some stuff on the mountain.

Maybe there's a tent there."

And I'm thinking, "It was 150 miles per hour up here.

Like, there's nothing left up here. It's blown off the mountain."

No one has been up here since Nims, is that right, over?

That's right, over.

No shit that's right, over.

Sherpas are also just people, you know,

you cannot blame them for not going up in the wind.

Oh, I don't blame them at all.

But I do blame you guys for trying to pretend like tents were here

from the 15th of January

when we've had 150-mile-per-hour winds up here.

Come on man, you're better than that.

Yes. That's a big, big mistake.

Like, I'm afraid, I'm freaked out

and I'm essentially in the fetal position.

Can't move my legs, can't unzip my boots,

can't get to my backpack.

And it's just a big sort of dog pile.

There's no tents, no food, and…

I think that…

some people…

will die this night.

Obviously I can't understand any of these guys

so what are they really fucking saying to each other?

We're trying to make Temba, who is the leader,

tell everybody they have to go down.

Please do that, take some people out of Colin's tent.

We'll need to make adjustments somehow.

It's not possible at all.

Half of us are already staying outside.

The Sherpas are now arguing

with a couple of people that they have to go down.

Let's hope the Sherpas convince them.

I couldn't imagine descending.

It would have been completely impossible, at least for me.

That's when I really felt my body was completely exhausted.

My feet were completely frozen, my fingers were cold,

and I knew something wasn't right.

JP's tent was so small

and then guys from Seven Summits came in.

And of course I was just making myself as small as possible.

Inside me, I already knew

that this is not the right time for me to make a summit attempt.

But I didn't want to say anything

because JP had decided to go for the summit.

So, if I say something now,

then it's already negative in his mind,

and maybe better not to say anything.

There was chaos and a strange situation in camp three.

There were six people in our tent.

So, we couldn't relax, we couldn't even boil the water.

Six people and no one's boiling any water - did he say that?

Yeah.

When you're at 8,000 meters on a mountain,

you need to rest, you need to melt snow,

you need to hydrate and you need space.

So, three people in a single tent works.

Six people does not work whatsoever.

Ali and Snorri were not part of my team,

but I still told them it's not a good idea.

Everybody had a bad night, because of the chaos in camp three.

So we kind of advised them not to go.

I had a phone call from John in camp three.

They had, like, real trouble in their tents.

They didn't manage to rest, they didn't manage to rub their feet,

and just clear their mind.

I could not ask what was going on,

because he didn't wanna speak about it.

But he said he's going for the summit.

Usually, he says, "Goodbye, my love," or something like that.

But there, he didn't say it. It was like…

just, "Bye."

There it is. The view from camp three.

My high spot.

Need to feel that positive energy and…

- Yeah, I also… - Too much tension and…

- Yeah. - …just not, not, not right.

- Yeah. - Something's not right, so…

- Yeah, I feel the same. - I had to say…

My body felt good, you know.

But…

- That's it. - See you down there.

- You get down safe, okay? - Yeah.

In the night, JP had gone for the summit,

with Sajid, John Snorri and Ali. Everyone else was coming back down.

Okay.

Time to go down!

- Hey, Colin. - How are you?

- You've done the wise job. Huh? - Colin.

- Just didn't feel right. - No.

Hard to make that call, but…

For me it wasn't, it was just common sense.

I said, "My checklist of ten things I need

to safely make an ascent, I don't have nine of them."

- Yeah, common sense. - Fuck.

That's what I said to them.

This doesn't work.

People were cooked.

No one had slept or rested properly.

Bernhard had really bad frostbite on his toes.

The Sherpas said the feet needed to be amputated.

In the end, I had three operations,

it took a very long time and was incredibly painful.

All my toes are gone.

It was really bad.

You can't really describe it.

Everybody was just trying to get the hell off the mountain.

You can't make a single mistake,

but these guys hadn't had tents to sleep in,

so they are very tired.

And so, I'm rappelling.

I got one hand on the rope,

I got the other hand on the base of the rope.

And all of a sudden,

a body, a person, flew right over my head

as I was descending.

And I turn around, and just started yelling.

I get down to camp one and I'm finally, "Okay.

This is the last section, this is where Sergi fell."

As I'm descending down, I look down and I see,

unmistakably, Atanas' body,

sprawled on the snow.

And he's dead.

Atanas was a Bulgarian climber, using the Seven Summits permit.

After that night at camp three, he was exhausted.

And exhaustion can lead to mistakes.

I don't even know, but it's a 800- to 2,000-meter fall.

You cannot survive that.

So we know it's a recovery, and--

but the problem is we have his girlfriend there.

You wanna talk to the Sherpa?

He can explain what happened.

It was horrible, and…

you know, when I'm gonna tell her, everybody's kind of hiding

and trying to make a post for social media.

This is very stressful.

And it only got worse from that point.

When I got back to base camp,

Atanas just fell down, and it was just chaos.

I thought, now I just wait JP coming down, and then just let's go away.

But the first question was,

"Do you have news about JP, and Ali and John and so on?"

I realized that a bit of tension was already in their question.

Base camp for Sajid, base camp for camp three.

I heard from Sajid that he came from Bottleneck,

around 10am in the morning.

Like, his regulator was not working well.

So he came to camp three,

and John, Ali and J. Pablo, they went up from Bottleneck.

We should be realistic, like, around about…

well, they should be here, but it's now late,

so we are a little bit worried.

I walk over into the main comms tent,

and Arnold and Elia, and a few others are in there,

and they have a really worried look on their faces.

We lose contact with Ali and JP and Snorri,

but Sajid is still in camp three at that moment.

If you go outside, be sure to get ready properly.

Is he coming down, or what is he doing?

He still is waiting up there.

I mean, as any son would, right?

There was no way he was going anywhere.

But he's got this burden that he's now carrying,

where he doesn't know what happened to everyone else.

The problem was that the weather was changing.

From 30-mile-an-hour winds and minus 50 plus wind chill,

you know, to 60-, 70-, 80-mile-an-hour winds.

So it was crucial that Sajid descend the mountain.

But he's supposed to just, like, leave his father?

Like, there's a pretty… 'Cause what if he could help them?

What if he could rescue them? What if they're just right there?

So there's a bunch of frantic dialogue back across these radios…

Base camp. Over.

Sajid, Sajid.

…saying, like, "If you don't leave soon, you're also gonna get stuck up there."

Thank you.

Welcome back.

I was scared.

Sajid!

Sajid came down to base camp.

I went immediately there.

And of course he was the one who saw them the last time.

So I needed to know.

And this was…

nearly breaking my heart.

I was exhausted and I tried to fix the oxygen,

but there was a malfunction in the regulator.

But my father told me, I couldn't continue climbing.

So, they continued climbing up and my last memory

is seeing them climb up at the Bottleneck.

I decided to come back. They are going up,

going up like this.

Not coming. I wait, wait, wait, wait.

All night long.

Hello?

Hello?

I couldn't tell my mother.

I just told her that the search mission is going on.

You know, earlier on, I said,

you go into these things hoping something's gonna happen.

What do you remember about John?

John, he was too motivated, yeah.

He wants summit, yeah.

And he said that we can't stop, we do this, yeah.

- And what about your dad? - He was too motivated.

Can you say "my father"?

My father was too motivated.

Before, he said, "It's my dream to climb K2 in winter".

But then when Sajid said something along the lines of,

"There's no way that they can survive."

Do you have any hope right now, with the search and rescue?

No. I know mountains, I'm also a climber.

I know the situation up there.

Now three days, in 8,000, in winter,

I think there is no hope. I know this clearly, yeah.

Because I know the reality in the mountains.

No. It's finished, yeah.

Closed, yeah.

That was the moment for me,

where I realized I have gone overboard, you know,

to a degree where it's like, "What am I doing right now?

This is fucking real.

Nobody wants a camera around."

In my mind, he was still alive,

and when they started to pack up,

I couldn't imagine John to walk down and everybody was gone.

Everything was gone.

I asked them to leave food, leave clothes and stuff

that would be for them, if they come down.

A person is just sitting at home with his wife

and then suddenly he goes up into the air here,

just to get a little fame.

Thinking that if I do this, then good things will happen for me.

They should have been careful.

Yes.

But then when everybody actually left the mountain…

…well, I came to realize that maybe he was gone.

It was kinda the first time that…

I knew that…

maybe he would not return.

When I look back and piece together this entire thing,

you can Monday morning quarterback it all day.

But the people that died on this mountain

were actually the most experienced people.

There's a reason that, in 2021, with all the modern equipment

and forecasts and whatever,

still no one had stood on top of this mountain in winter.

And no one has ever since.

No one goes to a mountain to die.

People go to a mountain to climb it

and to tell about it.

Audiences are interested

because life and death are the big topics,

the eternal topics.

They want to see mountaineers put their lives in danger

on an Instagram post or on a social media post.

But in the end…

this expedition ended with ten climbers on the summit

and five dead.

That is not a good balance.

So, where were you last when you saw your dad?

When I last saw, I'm here.

Yeah, they are here, there is the fixed rope.

Okay.

There, outside.

I wanted to go to K2 and find out what had happened.

As a son, it was my obligation to find and bury him.

Is it possible to get the body out and bring it down?

The face isn't clear.

Don't upload this to social media, please.

- You okay? - I'm okay.

No one's gonna put it on social media. Don't worry.

JP's mother told me, when I was there last year,

"Tamara, if you had these feelings for JP,

why you didn't tell him to stay down?"

But I never felt like this.

The thing I mostly regret, you know,

is that I didn't give him a big hug

and, you know…

a real goodbye.

I was sent a photo of him and…

it kind of helped me to go to him in my head,

and hug him and say, "It's okay."

You know?

Just to tell him I forgive him that he will not come home.

And I will take care of our children and…

We found the bodies, and we realized

that they got stuck in the storm.

Ya Allahu Akbar.

We didn't find any evidence that they summit.

But summit or not summit?

It's not matter for me.

They are no more.

Dying there is not that easy, it's one of the hardest deaths.

It's hard to believe. It's one of the hardest.

If someone die in an accident, fell down…

it's over in a few seconds.

But stuck in the storm and someone freezing there,

it's not that easy.

I won't say that the Nepalis betrayed us.

But still, if they had told us, we could all have done it together.

Ali was a really good friend of mine.

What some said was

that we cut the rope at the top.

And took the rope away, once we cut it.

Those were the rumors that were spreading.

It made me sad.

Because I am a Sherpa, of Buddhist religion.

But sometimes, Nimsdai is the kind of person

who says things in the moment without thinking much.

Yeah. I mean for me,

part of why I wanted to go back in the summer

was because of the allegation that Nims cut the ropes.

Well, we photographed the ropes up there.

There was no foul play.

Last winter we gave 700-meter rope, this rope, to the Sherpas

to fix, especially Bottleneck and for summit push.

But now I went till summit and there's many, many ropes

are fixed and anchored.

So there is no rope cut from Sherpas. This is fake news.

So, I think it's fair to say that Nims said what he said

without actually having the intention of cutting the ropes.

But the tents at camp three, you know,

this for me, I mean, that was the sticking point.

Had this catastrophe not have unfolded the way that it unfolded,

with all the commercial climbers,

and had John, Ali and Juan Pablo

actually been able to get warm, to mentally prepare, and to sleep,

they would have summited that mountain safely,

and descended safely, and they would still be alive today.

You know, there is a trail of negligence.

And it starts with Seven Summits.

Well, I can understand his thinking.

Of course, if you have a bad night, the next morning, the risks are higher.

But that doesn't mean you have to continue

for your summit push, you know, no matter what.

That's not our call.

We didn't send Ali up, actually, we did the opposite.

We tried to convince him that maybe it's not a good time now.

But the army generals show up in base camp

and then came the guy who makes the documentary about him,

and it put a tremendous amount of pressure on Ali, especially.

When I think about it now,

this was a very strange expedition

and I learnt a lot about fame or something.

Are we all happy?

For example, the idea was to give Nepal a moment of fame,

but Nims, actually, got in the spotlight,

and all the other people are kind of forgotten.

At the end, it's only the people who have the money and power

that really benefit from this achievement.

And the guys who don't speak good English

and cannot express themselves in the media that good,

they didn't get anything from that.

They're just still the same climbing Sherpa

what they were before.

We have a legacy

and the Sadparas are famous for mountaineering.

All things considered, I am wondering about mountaineering.

I am thinking about whether I should continue this profession or not.

But Father loved the mountains his entire life

and he died with them.

He is in the mountains now and will forever stay there.