K2 Carnage: Trekking Pakistan’s Karakoram Without Porters

A trek to K2 Base Camp is difficult enough with an organised expedition and a team of porters. In 1994, aged just 21 and with very little overseas travel experience, Stewart set out with four university friends to carry everything they needed through Pakistan’s Karakoram mountains.

In this episode, Malcolm and David are joined by Malcolm’s brother Stewart, who recounts an extraordinary journey towards K2 involving rockfalls, landslides, dangerous river crossings, severe illness and some decidedly improvised expedition planning.

The episode opens with the tragic news of the Broad Peak avalanche that killed mountaineer Nirmal Purja and nine other climbers. Broad Peak stands close to K2 in the Karakoram, overlooking the same remote glacial landscape through which Stewart and his companions travelled more than 30 years earlier.

Their adventure began with a gruelling journey from Islamabad to Skardu along the Karakoram Highway. From there, jeeps and sections on foot took them towards Askole, the last village before the traditional K2 Base Camp trekking route.

Unlike most expeditions, the group had no porters. They travelled with an experienced local guide, Mansur, but carried their own tents, food, climbing equipment and supplies for a journey expected to last around three weeks.

Even reaching the starting point proved dangerous. Landslides had destroyed sections of the mountain road, forcing the group to cross unstable slopes while rocks continued to fall around them. One large rock narrowly missed a team member’s head and struck his backpack instead.

Beyond Askole, the route followed river valleys towards the enormous Baltoro Glacier and the mountain amphitheatre around Concordia. This is one of the most dramatic high-altitude landscapes in the world, surrounded by K2, Broad Peak, Gasherbrum I and Gasherbrum II.

The group encountered broken paths, exposed ledges hundreds of feet above the valley floor and an improvised wire-and-basket crossing over a raging glacial river. At night they experienced bitter cold, while the days could be intensely hot. In the distance, flashes and artillery fire provided a reminder of the continuing tensions along the nearby Pakistan–India border.

The expedition began to unravel when their lightweight water filters became blocked by glacial silt. Stewart was eventually forced to drink water treated with purification tablets but not properly filtered. Several days into the trek, he became seriously ill with what was later diagnosed as both giardiasis and salmonella.

Dangerously dehydrated and losing weight rapidly, Stewart had little choice but to abandon the attempt. He and the group’s designated medic, Mark, turned back while the remaining three trekkers and Mansur continued towards their objective.

After several difficult days, Stewart and Mark reached the camping area at Jhola, where they waited for the others to return. With no means of communication and no idea whether their companions would arrive in hours or days, they created a chessboard on a sleeping mat and improvised pieces from playing cards.

Feeling slightly better—and apparently having learned very little from his illness—Stewart then set off alone to climb a nearby mountain, sleeping overnight on a ridge before returning to camp.

The group also encountered remarkably tough local porters, some crossing glaciers in little more than sandals while carrying enormous loads. At one point Mark used much of the expedition’s medical equipment to treat a porter whose badly injured foot had become dangerously infected.

Stewart reflects on the expedition’s rudimentary planning, the mistakes they made and the experience of travelling through one of the remotest mountain regions on Earth. He also explains how the journey influenced his attitude towards risk, adventure and preparation for the next 30 years.

In this episode

• Planning a K2 expedition before internet research
• Travelling from Islamabad to Skardu on the Karakoram Highway
• Trekking from Askole without porters
• Carrying three weeks of food, tents and equipment
• Crossing landslides, exposed ledges and glacial rivers
• Walking on the Baltoro Glacier
• Water purification problems in the mountains
• Contracting giardiasis and salmonella
• Turning back while the rest of the team continued
• Meeting climbers returning after losing teammates
• The lives and extraordinary resilience of local porters
• Waiting without communications at Jhola
• How extreme travel changes your attitude towards risk

Places and subjects mentioned

K2 • Broad Peak • Karakoram Mountains • Baltistan • Islamabad • Rawalpindi • Skardu • Askole • Karakoram Highway • Baltoro Glacier • Concordia • Jhola • Gasherbrum I • Gasherbrum II • Pakistan–India border • K2 Base Camp trekking • high-altitude illness • unsupported trekking

If you have any question on this or another travel topic, just contact us at contact.unraveltravel@gmail.com

Our theme music is Traveler's Blues by Jerzy Gorecki from Pixabay (with licence)

https://pixabay.com/users/jerzyg%C3%B3recki-2233926/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Welcome to Unravel Travel, where every journey has a story.

SPEAKER_03 0:17

But that that that particular route along the Boltoro Glacier, it's just unbelievable that it I think four of the 14 8,000 meter peaks rise up above that Baltoro glacier. You know, Gasha Brumwall and two, Broad Peak, where Nims Purger lost his life last week, and K2 are all there, you know, rising up as the Concordia Glacier meets the Baltoro, and it's just a it it's a landscape which I don't think you can see anywhere else in the world. It's just staggering, it's absolutely staggering. Oh well, okay. So obviously, we you can't carry your water very clearly. So we got which at the time, at least we thought at the time, were the most advanced lightweight water purification pumps, basically, which so you kind of put the water into a bag, pump it through like a filtering system, um, and it comes out clean on the other side. You add water purification tablets to that as well, and it's drinkable. So that's stream this is stream water, presumably. Yeah, now that worked to an extent, but then we started to have some problems because what what you find out there in in the mornings, the water running through the streams is is pretty clear. By the afternoon, where there's been more kind of glacial melt, the the stream started to get quite silted up. Yeah. So when you when we were pumping these these pumps, that they started to get blocked.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

They summited Mount Everest dozens of times and achieved numerous feats previously thought impossible, like climbing 8,000 metre peaks without supplemental oxygen and scaling K2, one of the world's most lethal mountains in the dead of winter. But beyond these accomplishments, the six Nepaulies who died in an avalanche on Pakistan's broad peak last week also elevated the world's recognition of Nepali mountain guides or Sherpers who had previously been seen as mere aides. Among those killed was the decorated British Nepali climber Nirmal Purja, best known for climbing the world's fourteen highest peaks rising above eight thousand metres in just over six months. So that's an unusual note for us to start on, but that's from the BBC newsfeed yesterday, talking about the accident, climbing accident in Pakistan last week, which uh seemed to claim ten very famous climbers and shirpers, and it's a good starting point for us. Uh reintroduce my brother Stuart, who is going to talk about his experiences on K2.

SPEAKER_03 3:21

If I can.

SPEAKER_05 3:22

Welcome, Stuart. Very somber note for you to take over from there.

SPEAKER_03 3:28

Yeah, yeah, sad sad news that. Yeah, yeah. But I guess there's a there's almost an an air of inevitability for people who spend that long that many times at uh at really high altitude in the in the death zone. It's it's one of these days you're gonna get your name on it, aren't you?

SPEAKER_02 3:48

Tough dangerous environment. And I'm sort of familiar with the broad outlines of what Stuart's going to talk about, although it's a bit lost in the midst of times. David knows nothing about what's to come.

SPEAKER_05 4:00

Um I know nothing.

SPEAKER_02 4:03

So that's not unusual for for us. For one of our podcasts, absolutely. So, uh Stu, perhaps you'd like to start by giving us a sort of rough outline of of what happened, when this was, what you did, etc.

SPEAKER_03 4:21

Yeah, okay. So it probably would have been at some point in 1993, myself and some friends who I was at university with, I was actually in the officer training corps at university, attached to the uh Welsh Fusiliers, and I was particularly good friends with chap called Dan Jarvis, who people might be aware, he's he was very recently with defence secretary in the Labour government. Dan went on to be a major in two para. But but he was very outdoorsy, as you might expect. Loved the mountains, so did his brother Rob, uh, who was up in uh university somewhere up in Scotland, I think. Could have been Sterling, but I'm not sure. I guess between us, we kind of hatched a plan in the summer of 1994 to go and attempt to do two things. One to trek to advance base camp or camp one on K2, um, unsupported. So that's carrying all our own equipment, not using not using porters or sherpas, as you referred to. Tend to call them porters in Pakistan. Um to be a Sherpa, you need to be born in uh a certain region, I believe. I think that's right, yeah. So the BBC maybe got that that bit a little bit wrong.

SPEAKER_05 5:43

Although they did, I think I think they were actually Sherpas, but anyway.

SPEAKER_03 5:47

Oh, okay, fair enough. That's my pedantic bit over. And then we were the plan was to go from there to fly over to Kathmandu. So so to fly from Pakistan's side over to Kathmandu and do exactly the same on the Everest trek. Uh I don't know if you were probably aware of that, Matt, but that that was the original intention. We only ended up doing one of those things for reasons that we're gonna do. And it was slightly kind of back of fag packet sort of planning, if I'm brutally honest. It was let's surprise how it goes.

SPEAKER_02 6:21

Most of my questions are about how much planning you did, Stu.

SPEAKER_05 6:24

Well, let me dive in with one then, so it's not all you, Malk. So, given '93, I suppose there was an internet, but not as easily available, I suppose. Well, what were your sources for your planning, Stu? Not many, to be brutally honest.

SPEAKER_03 6:41

I mean, in terms of the actual trek, it was a reasonably well known route because obviously there's been a lot of climbing a sense on K2, and obviously the the the expeditions have to take that route in. But it is not a it's not a classic kind of tea house trek. Yeah, absolutely. As they might call these treks in in the pool. It's it's a much more demanding route than that. So uh as as far as I certainly then, and as far as I know now, I'm I'm almost certain someone will have done it since then, but we were the first people to do it unsupported. So normally it was climbing expeditions who would go in with porters carrying all or a large amount of their kit, obviously, to enable them to do the staged um summit ascent. So yeah, it was it was a little bit different what what we were planning on doing, and uh, and there wasn't really a precedent. I mean, it's uh if you're pinning me down for how many days it is there and back, I I think you're looking at three weeks best part of. Yeah. Um probably and how high is uh advanced camp, advanced base camp. So camp one or advanced base camp is about 20,000 feet somewhere in that region, in that in that ballpark figure.

SPEAKER_02 8:04

So I did some uh I asked my researcher to look up key statistics here, and uh K2 Basecamp is approximately 5,100 metres, it's all in metres. And the pronunciations here are gonna get interesting. Stuart, did you start at Askole?

SPEAKER_03 8:24

Askoli, yeah, that's right. Yeah, we did.

SPEAKER_02 8:27

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_03 8:29

Yeah, so so number one, I think you're right now, base camps are about is it 16.5, 17,000 feet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is still trekkable. It's still trekkable to get there, i.e., you you're not having to rope up.

SPEAKER_02 8:45

And so it it says that Askal was at 3,000 metres, and it's probably about a 180 kilometre round trip to the to the normal base camp, and you were obviously intending to go to the higher one.

SPEAKER_05 8:58

Yeah, yeah, but so it wouldn't have been many kilometres actually. No, no, but a lot of extra high climate.

SPEAKER_06 9:04

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 9:05

I had to look up what 20,000 feet is in metres, it's just shy of 6,100 metres, which is pretty blumming high. I mean, highest ice beans 5,2 uh hundred metres, and I always get altitude sickness above about 4,800. So, I mean how maybe we're jumping ahead a little bit, but I'm just curious, how did you cope with the altitude? You obviously had a bit of time to get in there.

SPEAKER_03 9:29

Yeah, altitude-wise, obviously you feel it massively, and and I think because we were we were lugging a very large amount of kit, um, so it it was very physically demanding in terms of being out of breath, that was commonplace while we were doing it as I recall. But then again, we were all sort of between the ages, I think I was the oldest at 21. I'd just graduated that summer. The other lads were all a year below me. Um, so we, you know, we and and we were very fit, you know. We were in we were in good nick. So it it was something, but even so, it was incredibly challenging.

SPEAKER_02 10:05

Um was it four of you Stu or five of you?

SPEAKER_03 10:09

There was five of us, yeah. Five of us.

SPEAKER_02 10:12

How does that work out in terms of sharing kit uh normally sort of two men to a tent? Does that mean you're you're carrying a bit more than you need to? Would four or six have been an ideal number?

SPEAKER_03 10:21

Yeah, do you know it's a good question that because I think we just took the two tents, two two-person tents, and probably cramped three into one, as I recall, but uh but truthfully, I can't remember. Definitely tight. What what I what I do remember was the days were very hot and and the nights were incredibly cold. Yeah, that there was a map that the one thing that really struck me was the huge temperature shifts, and it and it was probably my first trip, you know, uh overseas in a meaningful sense as well. So it was a bit of a baptism of fire in a in a in a lot of ways, really.

SPEAKER_02 11:00

And did you did you do practice hikes up and down mountains in Scotland or Wales as you were in Wales?

SPEAKER_03 11:07

No, Wales, Wales, we were spending quite a lot of time in the Breck and Beacons.

SPEAKER_02 11:11

Right.

SPEAKER_03 11:12

Um, any anyway, big because that was where our unit did most of its training. I was actually in our patrol troop without going into too much boring military detail. It it was we were doing a lot of really physically demanding training up and down the Breck and Beacons. Yeah, it was it was it was a I was in decent nick that yeah, I have to say.

SPEAKER_02 11:33

And then for a while and did you take all your kit from England or did you buy specialist high altitude kit in Pakistan or wherever?

SPEAKER_03 11:44

No, we brought all we brought all the kit we needed from the UK, including rampons, and all our all our camping, hiking equipment, clothing equipment, all that came from the UK. The only thing we purchased on Pakistan side was obviously all our food, and and we we I think we took some dried foods actually from the UK, some sort of ration-packed dried food, which you add water to because obviously we were very conscious of minimising weight, yeah. And our packs weight, I don't know how much our pack weighed, but they were incredibly heavy. And when when you're carrying for the best part of three weeks there and back, it's um yeah, you're obviously trying to limit what you take.

SPEAKER_02 12:24

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And did you have a guide?

SPEAKER_03 12:29

Yes, yes. So we had we hired a guide in his Lamabad. No, I'm lying, in Rowla Pindi. Uh, we flew into Islamabad and then we we took public transport to Pindi, where we that's kind of like the the place where you will pick guides up to take you up into the Himalaya. Pindi's kind of on the edge of edge of the mountains, if you like. So we got um we hired a guy called Mansur, I still remember his name, and he he was the tiniest guy, but incredibly fit. He'd he'd done the route lots of times as a as a porter, and I think he had actually done a bit of high-level porter or sherpering work, i.e., you know, using ropes, etc., going up some of the the 8,000 meters peaks. So he was really experienced, but he he was they were very surprised. And I remember us getting there and trying to, it took us a day or two, as I recall, in Pindy, or maybe even longer, to get everything organised and ready and get the necessary permits. But there was, as I recall, a fair bit of debate about whether they would allow us to do it without taking porters because it hadn't been done, and I think truthfully, our guide didn't particularly fancy doing it carrying all his kit either. Yeah, don't blame him, yeah. Because of course, normally he'd he'd do that that stretch, um, you know, with other people supporting what yeah, dividing up all the weight.

SPEAKER_02 14:04

So was it four of you plus the guide? Was that the five? No, five plus the guide. Five plus the guide, right? Okay, yeah, yeah. Uh yeah, and that was I mean, you you can't do it without because it's a military zone, isn't it? It's on it's in a contested area, not contested area, but a politically sensitive area. I should imagine they were worried what was going on with four British military people turning up wanting to go.

SPEAKER_03 14:26

That's right. Well, we we we actually didn't disclose that we were, and I think that was quite significant. We we probably wouldn't have been allowed into that zone because it I've actually just remembered now you saying that uh at night, on a at least a couple of occasions, you could actually hear shells being fired in the area where we were, and you could see flashes of light up behind some of the mountains. And and as I understand it, at that time there was a bit of conflict going on between India and Pakistan in that in that border region, and there was quite a lot of military activity, choppers going up and down the valley, etc.

SPEAKER_05 15:07

So, how you talked about the permits. I'm I'm somewhat surprised they didn't do any sort of background checks on you. But how easy was it to uh to get hold of the permits? Because you said uh you'd sort of like got them in a day. I per I'm again surprised it wasn't something that was needed to be applied for back in England.

SPEAKER_03 15:24

Yeah, I can't remember, and there might have been an element of that, Dave, that that we applied for it back in the UK, but truthfully, I can't remember the exact process. But I do remember there being some you know considerable conjecture about whether we were allowed to go on our own without comfort.

SPEAKER_05 15:42

Well, they they obviously didn't want headlines where sort of like four inches discovered.

SPEAKER_03 15:48

I mean, obviously Matt Mansor was a a licensed mountain guide, so yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:54

My research tends to indicate that you wouldn't be allowed to do it now, that you would have to take uh you'd have to take some sort of horter Sherpa with you because they don't want the risk of people you know failing for one reason or another because they haven't got the right kit or the they've cut it too light or all those sort of things, and I think probably because they want the employment in the area, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:17

So yeah, there'll be an element of that as well, I would imagine. But it it so maybe who knows, we we might have been the only people to ever do it. Spoiler alert Did you do it? Yeah, well, yeah, and but that gets onto did we all do it? Well, there's a story there.

SPEAKER_02 16:35

Um so you're in Islamabad for a few days sorting everything out, and then you headed up Ralpindi and up towards Ascoli.

SPEAKER_03 16:44

Well, not quite, not quite, because we went so that the route we were originally gonna fly into Skadu from Islamabad, but the weather was such that and this is quite commonplace, the weather was such that we that we couldn't fly in on the day we wanted to, so we ended up taking public transport from Islamabad to Skadu, which is basically the capital town of of Baltistan, which is like attached to Pakistan, if you like, isn't it? We went up through um an incredible road called the Karakurum Highway, which was a dual Pakistan Chinese venture to link the two countries through the Himalayas, and that that was some road journey. Yeah, I can imagine.

SPEAKER_02 17:32

And how long did that take?

SPEAKER_03 17:33

A couple of days? No, I think it was I think it was about 20 hours, as as I recall. What I tell you about that journey, which I remember really well, is that the bus was designed for quite small people who live in mountain regions, not for some. I mean, I'm not big compared to you, Mike, I'm only 5'10, but uh, but I literally couldn't fit in this bus. And uh, a lot of the journey I had to have my knees up and just being quite cramped up every time, every time we stopped not ideal preparation then.

SPEAKER_05 18:09

Where was your gear?

SPEAKER_03 18:10

Was it all on the roof? Yeah, all the gear on the roof, yeah. That's right. Yeah, and and I think some other people as well. Yeah, no surprise.

SPEAKER_02 18:19

So you didn't do some sort of a climatisation walk, she just got there and got cracking, did you? We did. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 18:26

What was the height where uh roughly where you actually started the trek?

SPEAKER_03 18:31

About three thousand metres. Yeah, the village of Ascola, I I believe, is around three thousand metres.

SPEAKER_02 18:38

Okay, so you're listening to K2 Carnage on Unravel Travel.

SPEAKER_05 18:45

For those that don't know, starting at 3,000 metres, you're gonna have you're gonna feel the altitude right from the start. I mean, ideally, you'd start at about a thousand and slowly work your way up. So, yeah, that that would have been.

SPEAKER_03 18:57

I mean, we can we we actually did quite a bit of trekking before we got to Ascole because the route from Skardu to Ascole is mountain tracks which are just cut into the sides of the river valleys, so you you but inevitably on at least a couple of occasions there'd been massive landslides. So you you'd be going along following the course of the river, maybe a 100-200 foot up above above the height of the river, and you you'd all of a sudden come across this landslide, you then had to trek across this landslide and then wait or trek across to the next available point where you'd pick up another Jeep, which would come from the other side, you know. People who were transferring us obviously had some method of communicating, so a jeep could come from our skull A side, because a skole was basically the roadhead. And when I say roadhead, I use that in the loosest sense of the term. It was more of a it was more of a track. And and I I remember the the the road journey just just actually sort of blown me away a little bit, how how remote and challenging it was.

SPEAKER_02 20:08

That's before you even get started properly.

SPEAKER_03 20:11

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, in actual fact, what we could have easily lost someone before we even got to a scole, because on one of the occasions where we had to go across this landslide, there'd been a huge landslip, and we started to go across it, and then up above, rocks started falling down again, and they were tumbling down the this this rock slide, which was very steep angle. So we ended up doing it one at a time, sort of spacing ourselves out and rushing across as as madly as we could, obviously, all carrying a lot of kit and equipment as well. One of the lads got his backpack, got hit just behind his head by a really large, like really large rock. It would, you know, it would have I think it would have been good in the end if it had hit him in the head to be honest, and it was so close to doing that. So that that was really hairy, actually, on that particular case. It's probably one of the most dangerous parts of the whole trip, and we hadn't even got to the village yet.

SPEAKER_02 21:07

So uh when you got to the village, did you just crack on? Because I guess could you pick up supplies there, or did you just have what you had with you you wanted to get going?

SPEAKER_03 21:15

Yeah, I think I I I think the village, I think we'd already got most of our food supplies. I think we had a night there because we got there late on. We we slept in one of the village houses um overnight, and maybe did they prepare us a chicken or something? I seem to recall. Uh, made some sort of chicken brothy curry type affair before we headed off. Balti stan. Balti, could well be chicken bolty. Yeah, it was a pretty scrawny chicken, though I'll tell you, there won't there wasn't a bit of meat type. Probably still the best meal you had for a while. Yeah, for sure. For sure. What did you do about water on the trek? Oh, well, okay, so obviously we you can't carry your water very clearly.

SPEAKER_05 22:00

So we got which at the time at least we thought at the time were the most advanced lightweight um water purification pumps basically um which so you kind of put the water into a a bag pump it through like a filtering system um and it comes out clean on the other side you add water purification tablets to that as well and it's drinkable um so that's stream this is stream water presumably yes yeah now that that worked to an extent but then we started to have some problems because what what you find out there in in the mornings the water running through the streams uh is is pretty clear um by the afternoon where there's been more kind of glacial melt yeah um you they the the the stream started to get quite silted up yeah and when you when we were pumping these these pumps that they started to get blocked um and that that that's obvious that is obviously a big issue because we you know not drinking water was was not an option yeah um so in the end we certainly were drinking quite a bit of our water unfiltered just using water purification tablets and to be fair when I've been uh it's often just water for purification tablets I mean that obviously doesn't get rid of the silt which is obviously the issue which was blocking up your water in the first place so I'm imagining a fair bit of your water you were drinking probably didn't have much microbios or whatever you call it but it probably had a fair bit of filth in it.

SPEAKER_03 23:43

Well yeah I mean I ended up picking up Gyardia which is basically Ameat dysentery uh while I while I was out there which was pretty horrific. Um yeah and I think that was in part to do with the the issues we're having with the water filtration.

SPEAKER_02 24:01

But certainly how far into the trip were you when that happened to you?

SPEAKER_03 24:06

Let's call it expedition I I can't remember exactly but I'm probably gonna say somewhere around five six days something like that.

SPEAKER_05 24:16

Right so maybe nearly halfway there and and you know tried to push on with it and I I also actually contracted Salmonella it it as it as it happened I and I didn't I didn't know that at the time I I think we we understood that it might have been Gyardia which I had but I when I got back to the UK later I discovered I'd I had Salmonella and Gyardia simultaneously um and if you think it's for those that haven't done it if you think it's hard trekking carrying all that gear try doing it when you're feeling well if back in the UK you'd have been bedbound and you're still having to carry all your gear it's bloody I mean I I never had to carry all my gear but I trekked while feel while having uh some sort of a diarrhea sort of issue and it's bloody awful so I don't know how you managed it.

SPEAKER_03 25:04

With great difficulty and and obviously I'm two I think a couple of days in from my symptoms kicking in you know that that was me done and and myself and the team medically we stopped and turned back at a very very slow pace because I was starting to have issues around altitude as well I think as mainly as a result of the you know it had been dehydrated yeah being being very very dehydrated and the the the symptoms were pretty horrendous. I mean if you imagine going to the toilet you'd want the seatbelt on let's put it like that you didn't have a lot of spare kit with you either did you Stu so that can't have been much fun no I mean we did we did have we did have medication which which took obviously to you know block up we I think I took some medication called flagell which at that time was what they don't Malk which at that time um was what was um prescribed for Gyardia uh and that that sort of turned things round for me after a a couple of days but the problem was we were on such a tight yeah uh turnaround you know it was difficult for for me to continue or or to ask everyone to stop for a couple of days because it would have it would have shafted the whole thing. So if you had to turn around and you only had two tents how was that dealt with well the the the one of the other guys came back with me as well who's our medic. So one tent was enough for the people that went ahead yeah yeah I and I don't know we might have had three to be brutally honest I can't remember was there uh if he was the medic was there a walkie-talkie link or somewhere contacting the the party that kept going so if they had been done they were screwed yep yeah an awful lot of medic can do it that height anyway I guess I mean this was the route to KT base camp so there'd have been other groups wouldn't there kind of be in the same track yeah okay yeah there were other groups but it was it was rare to to see other people if I'm honest we did bump into some we actually bumped into a climbing group that was on its way down they'd actually I think I think they'd successfully summited but they'd lost three people up up near the summit. Lost as they were left behind no as in yeah as in dead whether they left them behind or present yeah so we there were other there were some other climb that was the only other climbing group that I remember actually coming across we did come across there was a there was a group of Japanese people who were trekking in small group with a massive group of porters because I remember thinking at the time there's like three or four Japanese people and maybe 30 porters with them I remember thinking at the time maybe we should have done that what did you do about um cooking foods I I've asked about the water but I mean how did you get fuel for preparing food?

SPEAKER_05 28:13

So we we took like small gas stoves with gas canisters.

SPEAKER_03 28:18

So the lightest that's a possible available yeah there were the lightest available at at that time yeah but there was a there was for a portion of time I didn't really eat anything because I was off it was it was the last thing I wanted to do to eat I was drinking a lot but I mean that would be the other thing though because your fuel would have been sort of earmarked for food you probably couldn't even boil the water so you didn't really have many choices about how to uh to purify yeah difficult divid real really difficult and nobody else came down with the same things too no actually no everyone else was was very lucky and and was absolutely absolutely bang on yeah fine and to be honest after after a few days treatment I was I mean we we went back to one of the we trekked back over the course of a couple of days or more back to I think it was a camp it's not say campsite a a camp spot it was a a well known flat area near a river I think it was called Jewler um and and we waited there we'd pre-arranged that we would wait there for the rest of the group to come back yeah so we were kind of sat around for a long time and I actually got when when I was feeling a a little bit more chipper I actually got kind of quite impatient and went off and climbed a a mountain on my own actually I tried to persuade the the guy who was with me the team medic but he didn't fancy it which was probably a sensible call so I climbed up slept on a ridge overnight and then did a bit of a summit the next day of a I say a mountain it was like a a a peak it wasn't a bit you know it wasn't a huge hill it was up above the snow line but not not massively so uh but it was very hot then I don't know what altitude I went to but I'm guessing maybe 18 19 thousand feet something like that.

SPEAKER_05 30:12

Did your did your guide and medic regret taking this expedition on at the end of it?

SPEAKER_02 30:18

Well the guide and the medic it wasn't the guide and the medic the same person that the the medic was one of your guys and the guides went yeah but I should imagine they might both have regretted it.

SPEAKER_05 30:28

Oh yeah yeah maybe yeah maybe I certainly would have done if I'm I've got if I'm the medic of this guy to go oh yeah yeah I've been sick for the last couple of days but I'm just gonna fuck off and climb I'm gonna sleep overnight on the ledge I'm gonna climb to the top of that thing and you'll probably see me tomorrow at some point.

SPEAKER_03 30:43

I'll be fuck off you're not doing that yeah I mean the medic was he was he a uh uh doing medicine at university or was he uh just the the one that knew most about medicine from amongst your club yeah he he designated driver was he yeah and I think he was yeah he he was read the ladybird book of medicine ladybird book of handing out tablets he actually was quite busy at one point because we came across a a porter who was on his way back down being carried and supported by another couple of porters this was when we were up on the Baltoro glacier and he'd he'd taken a horrific fall and had mashed his foot to to bits by the way and he and his foot was um you know it was it was badly infected the wounds you know turning septic so I remember Mark he was called the medic actually using quite a lot of our medical equipment and supplies sorting this guy out you know taking several hours to do what he could for this guy and you know leaving him with a course of antibiotics because again you know the this chap was a long long way from anywhere and I and I don't suppose and in a better state to walk to walk you were in a better state to walk back than he was. Yeah I mean he was having to be carried so yeah yeah so the uh did the others reach their objective the three of them without any further complication because being in mind they had no medic and only half their gear yeah they did yeah they absolutely did yeah they they smashed it and and I don't know however long it was later probably seven eight days later maybe even longer than that you know they they met up with us at Juula and we all carried on back down you know I think they I mean the what what a trip the the the place itself if you've ever been to that part the the Himalayas I know Dave's been to the Himalaya um Nepal side haven't you Dave exactly yeah um I'm I'm going to the Indian side uh in January but not to do not to do anything like you're doing did I mean I wouldn't want to do it now Christ um I'm not sure I'm not sure I wanted to do it then but that that that particular route along the Baltoro glacier it it's just unbelievable that it I think four of the 148000 meter peaks rise up above that Baltoro glacier you know Gasha Brum one and two broad peak when Nimsperger lost his life last week and and K2 are all there you know rising up as the Concordia glacier meets the Baltoro and it and it's just a it it it's a landscape which I don't think you can see anywhere else in the world it's just staggering it's absolutely staggering did you take a camera yeah yeah I did I took a like a point and press obviously there's no digital cameras back then I've one roll of film yeah yeah a couple of rolls of film and and unfortunately managed to put one of the rolls of film in had there was some sort of problem with the camera I think it was even like a throwaway camera type job just to make it lighter you know and a lot of the pictures which I took were double exposed but I've still I've got some good ones really good ones from the trip um to to help me remember things many years on but yeah it was just an incredible trip and I I do remember you know even though it was physically very challenging in particular because of the medical problems I had I just remember thinking I really want to do that again. I never did but it it was something I've been to the Himalayas you know a couple of times since you know it it's interesting because you've gone from uh K2 to uh most of your expeditions now are at sea level definitely definitely a better call well I don't know you I mean worse things happen at sea exactly uh those that haven't heard them that Stu's done a couple of episodes with us on uh canoeing uh kayaking expeditions sea what sea ones so uh check those out as well and see if he's learnt any lessons from his K2 trips or not careful what you drink yeah so while you were sitting around for eight or nine days waiting for everyone else to come back Stu did you get up to anything else or were you just sat playing chess which is what Dave and I would be doing or counting we did play chess we act we actually did play chess and we used we used a slip one of our sleeping mats we drew like a a chess board on and then we used playing cards one of us had a pack of playing cards um to as chess pieces we got our hands on some playing cards I'd be surprised if we actually took some but we maybe got our hands on some playing cards from a maybe a group of porters that had gone through or an expedition that had gone through we did that's lucky for you because I can't imagine you surviving eight days with with him whatever his medical you know Hippocratic oath might have been eight eight days with you with nothing to do you there might have been a small cairn at the corner of that field. Yeah blessing the poor guy having to put up with me yeah I I do feel for him to be honest in retrospect. But yeah I mean go going going up because that's going to drive you mad isn't it eight days sat in one place when you don't know when they're coming they might walk around the corner in five minutes or it might be another three days that's right and uh and I mean the the scenery there was incredible but that that only carries you so far every day you know so I I was desperately it doesn't change much every day does it the scenery not really not really and the weather was pretty consistent as well very hot in the day very cold at night and you know you you I I was just keen to do something so this is Unravel Travel and you're listening to K2 Carnage yeah so you you you had your uh illness mishap were there any other mishaps on the trip there were some really tight calls but fortunately no significant mishaps in in one of the the valley crossings we had to do the river crossings uh the a bridge had come down so they'd erected a both chair or something yeah I think they call them a tune in the pull it's basically just a a wire strung across the river with uh um a basket slung underneath it and it was an old wooden basket they were using um and you pull yourself along on like a pulley system and the obviously the the river underneath was um a a raging torrent you know I mean these are these are these kind of rivers if you fall in them that you know it it it's it's good night from you and the the I remember watching a a goat herder take his goats over one of these earlier in the trip thinking god god almighty and then he went over himself thinking oh my god that looks horrific and then a few days later we were doing it ourselves because because we had no other option yeah yeah yeah in in one of the other valleys we were we were going along because obviously much of the route goes along the valleys before it was sometime before we got onto the onto the main glacier the Baltoro glacier which leads up to K2 there was a section of path which had just fallen away must have been in a landslide or whatever so the only option was to actually go up a cliff face and across a ledge which these which the porters had sort of erected from stone slabs with with bits of wood wooden supports and we were maybe two three four hundred foot up above the valley bottom and we were the scramble was like a grade five scramble it was insane and and we had obviously huge backpacks on and I just remember going along this ledge which was only I've got a photo of it actually it must have been I don't know half the rock slabs maybe half a metre 50 centimetres something like that because I I put my the belt buckle of my Bergen next to it for scale so I could remember it and and it was a sheer drop down and I just remember going along it being hugging the rock face with my Bergen overhanging the side of it just clinging to this rock face obviously we're not roped up or anything like that. Yeah um it just being that whole particular section would was you know I think you're we're only ever just a a slip away really um and that that particular bit very much sticks in my mind as a as something which could have easily gone wrong but fortunately didn't and of course you know we we had to do that twice once there once on the way back I guess a lot of people who were using that route were not really going to K2 just for the base camp they were going to ascend.

SPEAKER_02 40:05

So they probably had loads of rope and gear with them. There weren't just you know tourists going to the base camp no offence tourists but but um they were actually going to do the ascent so they would have had all the gear so you were probably unusual in having to go across there without being roped up because they would have roped up you would have thought to do that.

SPEAKER_03 40:25

And and even the the trekking parties that were going to base camp or beyond you know would have also had a lot of porters carrying lots of equipment for just those yeah kind of situations where unfortunately we were we were doing it on the back of a fag packet.

SPEAKER_05 40:43

So well ropes are are are heavy very heavy anything I can't remember but it I think it's 25 meter rope anything shorter than that is is pretty useless in most circumstances. I think it's 25 meters but anyway that that weighs a few kilos so you know I could understand why you would uh maybe it wouldn't be in your list if it's supposed to just be a trek.

SPEAKER_02 41:10

Well and and then you can need all the stuff for mounting it and carabinas and harnesses and all sorts of stuff aren't you it's gonna be you know a load of stuff to carry so difficult. I mean what did you regret about your planning what would you have done differently other than perhaps had some slight different not go yeah I think yeah pretty much everything. I mean what were other people doing for their water? Because that sounds like that was where the the problem arose for you I mean did other were other people doing something different or was it just a a Russian roulette?

SPEAKER_03 41:42

Do you know I don't know is the honest answer. The amount some of these porters were carrying for these expeditions though it wouldn't surprise me if the port porters were carrying water with them. Okay. I mean they a lot of them had these huge blue drums yeah you know with the with the um black lids on which you see and whether that was water in some cases I don't know. Did you see any of the other groups with bigger stoves uh gas gas canisters because I was thinking boiling the water is always a good option did didn't didn't notice any of that we had a we had a couple of nights where we crossed paths and stayed overnight with some porters who were coming say downhill while we were going uphill and and they kind of would they'd they'd just be cooking using sticks which they've carried up there in the main right and and basically cooking chapatis on they're heating rocks up next to the fire and then laying the chapatis on the rocks and it was quite simple fare they also took some hard liquor I mean it's look look it's an Islamic country obviously Pakistan Baltistan um but the guys there had some serious liquor like hardcore this stuff they'd brewed themselves up there. You'll have come across that kind of thing on your travels and they were definitely not good Muslims in the strictest sense.

SPEAKER_02 43:12

You didn't take any with you Steve no but I had some of theirs you did and uh you were not to no coca leaf equivalent there's no yeah that's right there's there's nothing equivalent to the coca leaf um that David was using on the Inca trail recently well not recently but the recent podcast yeah yeah there's no there's no you know I mean it it's uh is that just a happy happenstance local remedies yeah local remedies for altitude don't know I I wasn't I wasn't aware of any I I can't think of any in Nepal either I mean there's you inevitably get a cold so it's quite often sort of uh ginger and uh honey

SPEAKER_05 44:00

Tea, uh, but that's more for treating sore throats and such like rather than for the altitude itself. Although, you know, any hydration is good at altitude, so they get as much fluid down you as possible, usually.

SPEAKER_03 44:13

Yeah, I mean, though those couple of nights we had where we where we did meet porter groups coming the other way and and you know, we shared an overnight camp with them, they were definitely you know brewing chai in the classic sort of Indian style. Uh very milky, very sweet. Uh, I remember having that. I remember you know, they were also you know, sat around a campfire at night having a smoke of what they smoked in those parts. Yeah, yeah. And and so that that that was pretty cool, but yeah, just you know, amazing people and hardy, hardy people, you know, who could carry what kind of equipment were they wearing?

SPEAKER_05 44:58

So I know when I've done it, uh the porters at least, and I know you didn't have porters, but you saw others, uh, they have anything but I mean okay, mine's a mine are Trek's, yours was more of a low-level mountaineering expedition. But I mean I've seen flip-flops, t-shirts, ripped uh hoodies. What what was the kind of gear they were wearing? Was it off cast or cast off?

SPEAKER_03 45:22

No, they they were wearing uh flip-flops, which surprised blew me away, actually, given the terrain that they were that that they were going over. You know, they're wearing flip-flops on a on a glacier. I mean, admittedly, you you don't the Boltoro glacier is so it's a mile across, and it's basically huge bowl, it's huge boulders on top of it. Um, so you don't a lot of the time you don't actually realize you're on a glacier apart from the odd creek. You know, you you just but nonetheless these guys wearing flip-flops. In terms of their actual clothing, I think they tended to wear like your your classic kind of uh pajama outfit that that you would find people wearing in Pakistan. The long shirt, the baggy trousers, dirty shirts. I forget what I forget what it's called. Is it Shawa? Is it Shawa? I'm not sure. I'm not sure what it's called. I don't remember. No down jackets then. Some some did have down jackets, yeah, which they'd they'd have on in the evening. But I think if you were to go there now, you know, 30 years on, yeah, I suspect I suspect a lot of them would have because it I think when we were doing it, it wasn't a common thing for people to these days.

SPEAKER_05 46:39

A lot a lot of the tourists sort of like leave some of their equipment behind as well if they haven't if they haven't got um decent gear, which is quite a good thing.

SPEAKER_02 46:47

There'll be a lot of people going to KT Base camp. Well, a lot of it's relative, more people going there to KT Base Camp than did when you went, Stu, and I'm sure probably the conditions for getting there are a bit easier.

SPEAKER_03 46:59

Yeah, I I yeah, I would hope so as well.

SPEAKER_05 47:01

So are you still in touch with the the guys that you did this with? Have they done you said you haven't well you have done other expeditions but not in the mountains? Have they done anything? Do you know?

SPEAKER_03 47:10

Well, Rob Jarvis, Dan's I mean, Dan Dan obviously went uh has gone after his military career, um, has gone into politics, so he's a very busy guy. Rob his brother was obviously I think he was really into his mountaineering before we went, but I suspect our trip shaped him to a degree uh because he he's he now lives in Chamonix, he's a high alpine guide in Chamonix, um and and runs, you know, he he runs ski touring trips and he he you know he's he's done a lot of the big alpine climbs and it in he's he's big in British mountaineering circles. Uh yeah, I've been in touch with him relatively recently and I speak to Mark a bit and John. I don't particularly speak to Dan just because you know I don't really reach out to him either, just because he's he's very busy. Yeah, doing it.

SPEAKER_02 48:09

He's a little bit less busy this week than he was a couple of weeks ago.

SPEAKER_03 48:12

A bit less less busy after Andy Burnham booted him out of after a few months. Yeah. Anything else you want to add? Just to say it it was an incredible experience, and I think something as a as a young man who was very naive about everything, really. You know, I've not I've not really been overseas uh when I when I went and did that.

SPEAKER_05 48:34

It was just such an It blows my mind that that was the first thing you decided to do. That's just nuts. Yeah, yeah. That doesn't blow my mind. You knew him for 21 years at that point. Uh how much did your family know that you were doing this? Uh they knew they knew.

SPEAKER_03 48:52

Um, I I don't remember something. They knew that you were going away on holiday, that you were going to space. I explained to my dad what we were doing, and of course we were meant to be going to Everest as well, but uh but I think time delays meant that we actually lot we we missed our flight to Nepal because it took us longer than we'd hoped. So my I think my dad was well aware of what we were doing, but probably didn't fully understand the risks.

SPEAKER_05 49:21

I don't truthfully, I don't think I've fully unless you've been in that environment, and I'm not for one moment saying I've been in exactly the same environment, but I've been in Kyrgyzstan, which is you know three, four days from anywhere, had similar rock falls, having to dodge the rocks. I think unless you've been there, you don't understand what somebody says they're about to do if if you just go, oh yeah, I'm just gonna go up to K2 base camp. People think base camp, oh yeah, that's a start. That can't be too bad, but it's a long way from the start. And in fact, the first time they went up Everest, they actually started in Kathmandu. They they trekked for something like the best part of two weeks before they even got started going up the mountain. And like you, they were having to carry absolutely everything with them. Uh, you know, that in itself would be one hell of a trek, and that's before you're even really getting started.

SPEAKER_03 50:10

No, it was a it was a it was a massive thing for me, and and as I say, I think it probably shaped me in the in the in the last 30 years in terms of my general outlook uh with reg with regards to risk, you know, in in in the it's probably worth taking it's probably worth taking risks, and things are are are rarely as bad as you necessarily think they are gonna be, particularly when it comes to risk reward with everything.

SPEAKER_02 50:37

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But also uh it makes you realise the value of planning, of course, doesn't it, Stu? If you're gonna take yes. So we could summarise it as you can take the man out of Lincolnshire and the Lincolnshire out of the man.

SPEAKER_03 50:52

Let's go with that.

SPEAKER_02 50:53

Yeah, cheers, Stu.

SPEAKER_03 50:55

I finally got to hear the story. Yeah, it's not that it's not that interesting, it's basically a story of epic failure, isn't it?

SPEAKER_05 51:01

Well, I I found it fascinating to be honest. The uh naivety, I think, that we went with it. But then also the sheer optimism that came along with the naivety. I love it. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:14

Yeah, gotta be optimistic, haven't you?

SPEAKER_05 51:16

Well, exactly. You won't get anywhere if you're not optimistic. Anyway, thanks everybody. Yeah, take care, guys. Bye. Bye.