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  Nanga Parbat

  It’s snowing – yet again. It’s been snowing for the last 3 days. Visibility is poor, route marking in the fresh show is physically draining, and pulling out the frozen and snowed-in fixed rope takes incredible strength. Strength that we no longer have…

  We were physically perfectly prepared for this enterprise. Each of us had trained hard, deprived ourselves and suffered. But here, over the last few weeks, our bodies have become powerless, abused, emaciated shells that can be driven on only with tireless motivation and strength of will. Despite all caution, second thoughts and protestations, our mind-set is uncompromising: “onwards and upwards”. This approach is, to a certain extent, indispensable when you are tackling a tough 8000 m mountain. The challenge involves an incalculable residual risk. To claim anything else would be purely and simply to lie. All of us have already climbed 8000 m peaks. We are familiar with extreme height and we know the dangers.