The Last First: Winter K2 (2026) Movie Script
1
[ominous rumbling]
[boom]
- [wind howling]
- [tent rattling violently]
[silence]
- [radio bleeps]
- [wind howling]
[man]
- [radio crackles]
- [silence]
[man 2]
[man]
[radio bleeps]
[man 3, breathlessly]
[wind roaring]
[ominous echo]
[producer, in Icelandic] Camera B.
Damn, you're good at this!
[producer] 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?
[in Icelandic]
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! [laughs]
- [producer responds]
But should I check your pulse?
- [laughs heartily]
- [producer responds indistinctly]
[Lina] 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 uh
go and live on the edge.
- [laughter]
- [indistinct conversation]
[Lina] We have quite a big family
with six children.
[indistinct conversation]
[Lina] 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.
[child laughs]
[John, in Icelandic]
One of the first mountains I climbed
was Mont Blanc, in 2011.
I remember I stood at the top. Uh
I was just waiting
for some feeling to come.
But I felt nothing.
[indistinct announcement
over loud speaker]
[John] It was only when I was descending
and I posted five pictures on Facebook,
that's when it came.
[tense music playing]
[Angela Benavides]
I'm a sport journalist.
I report on mountaineering expeditions.
The time of pioneers,
the time of adventures is gone.
[notification bleeps]
These days, thousands of people
flock to the Himalayas every season.
- [notification bleeps]
- Posting their stories on Instagram.
[notification bleeps]
Especially Everest. It's completely crazy.
[in Icelandic] So, this is where we sleep
tonight apparently.
[Angela] But K2 in Pakistan was different.
It's such a dangerous mountain.
[mouse clicks]
So, John Snorri announcing his intention
to summit K2 in winter,
that really was a story.
[in Icelandic] You have a lot
of time to think, hiking all day,
enjoying the beauty.
It's indescribable. [exhales]
[Angela] 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.
[Elia Saikaly] 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.
[wind whistling]
[Elia] 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.
[climber grunts]
This is the holy grail
for high altitude mountaineers.
There are no more historic records.
K2 winter was the last first.
[distant rumbling]
[wind whistling]
[in Icelandic] Okay, I'll do a lap
if the GoPro works. [strains]
[grunts] Okay.
Okay.
We are the only ones up here,
the only seven people camping on K2.
Here are our supply stations. [straining]
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.
[exclaims]
This is actually our second day.
The first day, crazy weather came
and the mess tent blew away. [sighs]
Mohsin, our chef
and one other person,
they were in the kitchen
when the kitchen just simply blew away.
[Mohsin, in English]
Look, look, look! Avalanche!
[John, in English]
Do you think it'll reach?
[rumbling, clattering]
[echoing] And here is another one! Look!
[man] My God!
[John grunts]
[wind howling]
[Elia] 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.
["Naughty Boy" by Nahid Akhtar plays]
[woman vocalizing]
[Angela] John Snorri had hired
two climbing companions.
Ali Muhammad Sadpara from Pakistan
and Ali's son, Sajid.
[camera shutter clicks]
[song continues]
Naughty boy, naughty boy
[Lina] When you are alone in the mountain,
you get, like, vulnerable.
Ho you come here
Naughty boy
But with Ali and Sajid,
when they start to climb together,
everybody got so close.
[Ali] John, what are you thinking
about wind here?
[John] 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.
- [sing-song] A, B, C.
- [sing-song] A, B, C.
[John, shouting] Can you give me a towel?
- [song continues]
- [shower water splashing]
[Lina] I think Ali
was a little bit like John.
A jolly guy, you know? [laughs]
[John, laughing] Whoa!
[Lina] They had a good time together.
[laughter]
Hey, this is our shower. The best shower.
[Sajid, in Urdu] In our culture,
kids are afraid of their father,
afraid of their scolding.
[in English] Wow, very nice.
[Sajid, in Urdu]
But my father was like a friend.
[song continues]
He began to be seen as a national hero,
but even after his world class
achievements,
he remained humble and simple.
[song continues]
My father and John Snorri
were of the same age and thought alike.
They were like friends.
Ho you come here
[Lina] John was so happy
about this friendship.
I think it was something
that he didn't expect.
Ho you
[John giggles]
Come here
Exercise. Yes.
Naughty boy
Loving this exercise.
[song fades]
[shovel scraping]
[wind whistling]
[sniffles]
[in Icelandic, muffled] We've arrived,
we'll stay for the night,
then go down to base camp.
[sniffles]
[sighs]
It was a rough trek, getting up here.
- [camera bleeps]
- The trio!
The main guy.
Ah.
[Lina] They were alone on the mountain
and
everything was good.
[in Icelandic] 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.
[Lina] But then the other team came.
[Ali, in Urdu] Nimsdai, here?
[bass guitar riff
from "Screen Shot" by Swans plays]
[Sajid, in Urdu] 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.
[Ali speaking Urdu]
Nimsdai was a Himalayan rock star.
[news anchor] here, in the studio,
explorer Nirmal Purja,
better known as Nims--
[reporter]
Nims, just arriving in Kathmandu
after setting a world record
many didn't think possible.
[reporter 2]
Nobody believed that this could be done.
[Angela] 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.
[Nims] So the fastest time
was seven years
and then I said,
"I will do that in seven months."
- That's insane, man.
- Yeah.
[Angela] 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.
[song continues]
Nowadays, nearly everybody has their own,
personal camera operator on an expedition.
[John, in English] Hi, nice to meet you.
[man] You too.
[Angela] And, of course, so had Nims.
[song fades]
[Sandro Gromen-Hayes] The first time
I saw John and Ali,
I took these photos of them.
[camera shutter clicks]
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
[laughing] I think some people
kind of wished he wasn't there.
[John, in English] Who're they?
- [Ali] Nims' Sherpas.
- [John] Ah ha.
Wow! It's like a
It's like a big city.
[Ali] There's Nimsdai!
[John] Who? Where? This guy?
[Ali] This guy? Here?
[multiple voices chattering]
[Sandro] 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.
[speaking Urdu]
[in Urdu] How many are there with you?
[in Urdu] One, John,
and he is absolutely fine.
- He is a very nice person.
- [Nims assents]
- [Sandro] How's it going, Ali?
- [in English] Yeah, everything is good.
Now we are-- 24, 25 days we are here.
- [Sandro] Whoa!
- 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.
[laughs] Yeah.
[Nims, in Urdu] We are planning
to go to camp two tomorrow.
- [in Urdu] Seriously?
- It's no problem at all. [laughs]
[continues in Urdu]
You need a little bit of rest, no?
[Nims] Nimsdai's team rests when we die.
- [laughs, speaks Urdu]
- [Nims laughs]
One should be a bit careful
in the winter
[camera shutter clicks]
[Sandro] 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.
[man] We're here trekking
to K2 base camp in the Karakoram.
The whole mountaineering scene
was kind of getting really itchy feet
through COVID.
[in Spanish] Practically no one here.
[Sandro] And then suddenly the first
big expedition to be open to Westerners
was K2 winter.
[mouse clicks]
That's right. A few tents back there,
that's K2 base camp. We did it.
Woohoo!
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.
[Colin] 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.
[Colin] 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."
Um, you know,
those are big words, obviously.
[mouse clicks]
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
Um, it's just a brutal situation.
[panting]
And then I had just thought, intuitively,
winter, there's just gonna be deeper snow
and potential for more avalanches.
[camera bleeps]
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 thuds]
- [climber] Rock!
[Colin] 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.
[rock clatters and thuds]
[Tamara Lunger] 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.
[in German, breathlessly]
I've been waiting for the sunrise,
counting the minutes until the sun comes.
[moans]
[Tamara, in English] Up there, in winter,
I never felt so alone.
[gasping]
[Tamara] Even if you're in a team,
you cannot look after somebody else.
Everybody goes for his or her own life.
[heavy breathing]
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.
[indistinct shouting and chatter]
[Colin] 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.
- [indistinct conversation]
- [Tamara] I met Sergi and JP.
They were such strong mountaineers.
And I felt immediately connected.
[sing-song] I don't want to pitch a tent.
[Tamara] Especially to JP,
because he seemed so beautiful to me.
Woohoo.
But K2 winter is really something
fucking hard, you know?
Um, and I think that some of the people
in the base camp
were not aware about this fact.
[Colin] Quite the party going on here.
That's for sure.
[scattered chatter]
[Arnold Coster] So half the group
were experienced climbers.
Uh, the other half were novices.
I think those people
had no idea what they got into.
- [climber] 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.
[rhythmic instrumental music playing]
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."
[in Polish] Seven and a half hours.
[laughs] I didn't expect it
to be that much.
[speaks Polish, laughs]
[Arnold] 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.
[camera bleeps]
But the fun part about my job
is that people come from everywhere.
All different backgrounds.
- [Arnold] Can be a housewife
- [man] Hello!
[Arnold] can be an athlete,
can be a business owner.
[camera bleeps]
[pulsing music playing]
[Bernhard Lippert, in German]
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.
[mouse clicks]
- [dance music plays through speaker]
- [laughter]
[Elia] 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.
[climber cheering]
[Elia] 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.
[dance music plays]
[JP] This is how
we're doing the expedition.
[music and laughter continue faintly]
Ah.
[in Icelandic] 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.
[boots crunching in snow]
[Lina] 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.
[John, in Icelandic] 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. [sniffles]
[tents rattling in the wind]
[Lina, over phone] Hi.
[John, in Icelandic] Hi, sweetie.
What's up?
[Lina, in Icelandic] All good, and you?
[John] Everything's okay.
[Lina] Yeah?
What's up?
[John] There are so many people
up in the camps.
[Lina] Yes.
[John] There are so many people here.
[Lina, on recording]
I know all of this is really tough
but you have to try to be strong somehow.
Just be smart in this competition.
[John] Yes, I know. I have to be smart.
[Lina] Okay, sweetie. I love you.
[John] I love you too, sweetie.
[Lina] Okay, good night.
- [John] Speak tomorrow.
- Yes.
[John] Bye.
[Colin] Traditionally on the route,
there are five camps above base camp.
[Colin, in video]
Camp one's roughly there.
Camp two, up into there.
Camp three, back in there.
Then, backside of that,
Bottleneck to the summit.
[Colin] 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.
[Colin] Climbing up!
[Colin] 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.
[man, in Polish] How's it going?
[in Polish] Hot
hard [chuckles]
and I feel alive! [chuckles]
[Colin] 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.
[exhales vocally]
[Colin] 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.
[Angela] I mean, you should speak
to the Sherpas about that.
[camera bleeps]
[producer] Why?
[Angela] Because no one
wants to be the bad guy, right?
But the competition was there.
[Gelje Sherpa, in Nepali] 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.
- [in English] Guys, this is, I think
- [man coughs]
25-year-old Chivas.
'Cause today is New Year's Eve,
we need to celebrate.
[Gelje, in Nepali] That night it was
New Year's Eve for the Westerners.
[upbeat traditional music plays]
[all laughing]
[Gelje] But the Nepalese team had started
speaking and planning privately.
[in Nepali] If it's a foreigner,
I'd rather fucking die
but I won't let them get ahead.
I'm being straight with you.
- [team laughs]
- [Nims speaking Nepali]
[Angela] That night was
the beginning of a change of strategy.
Which became much more nationalistic.
[Nims speaking Nepali]
[Angela] What I didn't know
was that the expedition co-leader
of the Seven Summit Trek team was there.
[Arnold] 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.
[man] 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.
- [man laughs]
[Arnold] 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.
[in Nepali] All I want is a record
for Nepal. More than anything.
[in Nepali] Rest assured
it will be Nepal on top.
Until we fix the ropes ahead,
the foreigners can't go.
[man, in Nepali] I hope none of them get
there first. I hope it's only Nepalese.
[Nims, in Nepali] 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.
[Nims, in English] Happy New Year.
[all] Happy New Year.
[all speaking Nepali]
[Gelje, in Nepali] My first job
was to collect yak dung
to make briquettes for fuel.
[faint music, whooping]
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.
- [indistinct shouting]
- [applause]
[wind roaring]
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.
[Lina, in Icelandic] So, is it just you
with the Nepalis and Pakistanis?
[John] Yes.
[Lina] No other foreigner?
[John] No one else, no.
[Lina, in English]
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.
[upbeat Shina song plays on speaker]
[John, in Icelandic]
We are working together.
That is a huge step forward
and in the next window,
we can try to reach the summit.
[Lina, in Icelandic] Yes.
[song continues]
[Ali sings along]
[all cheer]
[indistinct chatter]
[in Nepali] 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.
[in English] And we're done.
Thank you, brother.
[Lina, in English] So the weather window
they agreed on with the Sherpas
was around the 16th.
- [Ali, in English] Sunny there, John?
- Yeah.
A-hay! Lemon juice.
[Lina] So, in the morning,
they were waiting for the call from Nims
to summit together.
John Snorri, five star hotel!
[Colin] 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.
[Sajid, in English]
Camp 2 for base camp, over.
[Colin] But later on we noticed that Nims
and the Nepalese had gone quiet.
Complete radio silence.
- Camp 2, over.
- [John coughs]
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.
[tense music playing]
[Sajid, in Urdu] 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.
[Lina] 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.
Wow.
[in English] No wind, huh?
[Lina] It was over.
The Nepalese wanted to take
the summit for their nation.
It was clearly the plan.
[John clears throat]
[in Urdu] I could see the disappointment
on their faces.
They were quite shocked.
[wind blustering]
[Colin] Later that night,
the Nepalese started coming down.
[Tamara] 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, uh, they were just excluded.
[man] Congrats.
[Colin] 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.
[climber coughs]
[Colin] 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."
[in Nepali] 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.
[camera bleeps]
This was about 10 times harder
than any mountain I've climbed.
I got frostbite on my cheeks,
so I was also really scared.
[camera bleeps]
Very few people
achieve a world record in life.
It's something I'm very proud of.
[camera bleeps]
[Sandro] 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.
[camera clicks]
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.
[film reel whirring]
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.
[Colin] Congratulations, man.
Well deserved.
[Sandro] 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. [laughs]
[wind rushing]
[Magdalena] 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."
Um, and I just grabbed,
the fastest I could,
like, the GoPro
that I had in my internal pocket.
In my down suit.
- [wind battering]
- [rolling thuds]
[camera bleeps]
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.
- [Oswald] You saw what happened?
- Huh?
- [Oswald] You saw what happened?
- I don't know.
[Oswald] You will go down
to see what's happened. Yes? Okay.
I went after Juan Pablo.
[camera bleeps]
The closer I was getting, I understood
that there is a person laying down
um, on the floor, on the rocks.
And then Tamara said, "It's Sergi."
[cheering indistinctly]
[Angela] Sergi Mingote was perhaps
the most experienced climber
on the mountain.
He was climbing
with his friend, Juan Pablo Mohr.
[Tamara] 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."
[camera clicks]
[soft, slow notes playing]
When he fell down
I was so under shock,
that my body is just functioning.
There is no emotion allowed.
[Oswald] 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.
[indistinct chatter]
- [camera bleeps]
- [indistinct chatter]
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.
[Arnold] 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?
[Tamara] 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."
[Oswald] Yeah, first thing tomorrow,
everyone was going home.
The Nepali team climbed the mountain.
Sergi died.
It was, like, no point to be here.
[Colin] 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.
[conversing indistinctly]
[Tamara] 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 bam!
I saw Ali completely different.
[wind buffeting microphone]
He was a bit nervous of this tension,
so I think he was not sure what to do now.
[sorrowful piano music playing]
[Sajid, in Urdu] 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.
[helicopter whirring]
[dramatic, pulsing music playing]
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.
[music continues]
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.
[Arnold] 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.
[Elia] 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.
[Elia] And go for it.
[Lina] 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.
[pulsing music continues]
[in English] Now, what do you think
about the camp?
- [Ali chuckles]
- Getting empty, huh?
- Yeah, it is.
- How many people left this morning?
This morning maybe 14,
15 people left, yeah.
[John] Yeah. Uy-uy-uy.
Inshallah, we also go with heli.
No, no, no. When we-- After we summit,
- we stay here celebrate.
- Yes.
- In base camp.
- In base camp.
[Colin] Ali and John had been there
for a couple months at this point.
And so they decide, "We're going for it."
- [distant rumbling]
- The rest of us had planned to leave.
You see avalanche over there?
[Ali] 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?"
[camera clicks]
[Tamara] 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."
[Oswald] Somehow I felt
like Juan Pablo and Tamara were,
like, the most experienced.
And they were, like, important persons
to shape also my opinion.
[camera clicks]
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.
[Arnold] 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.
[indistinct voice over phone]
[Angela] Then there came news
of another possible summit window.
[John] Do you have, like,
a timetable of the wind,
when the wind will start to slow down?
I understand that, but I'm try--
[indistinct voice over phone]
I am trying to understand.
Yeah, you don't understand me.
[indistinct voice over phone]
Uh, Jan, could you se--
- [indistinct voice over phone]
- Don't speak any English.
Okay, Jan. I wait-- You send me now.
You send me now. Okay?
- Bye-bye.
- [phone beeps]
Oof, he don't speak any English.
Stuck.
[John] 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. Mm-hmm.
If we couldn't, I would say no.
But we can use it.
And we will try to use it. We will use it.
[climber] I might even use it.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
I think this is our shot.
- Very good.
- Yeah.
[smacks lips]
Excellent.
[Ali] Mm-hmm.
Yes.
[indistinct chatter]
[Arnold] 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.
Uh, 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.
[Arnold] 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.
[Magdalena] 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.
[wind whistling]
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.
[wind howling]
- [climber] Nice morning.
- [John] Oh, yeah.
[John] See you up there.
See you up there, brother. Take care.
[John] Take care. Be careful of the rocks.
[Bernhard] I think you're on the mountain.
[John] Yeah, see you on the mountain.
[ominous music playing]
[Colin] 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?
[in Italian] Here we are at camp one.
[in English] JP, tell me something.
We are motivated [laughs]
for summit.
[Tamara] I don't know,
we will see.
No pressure, no pressure.
[JP] Pressure.
[Magdalena] 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.
[coughs]
But probably it saved
my life too. [wry chuckle]
[wind howling]
[Colin] 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.
[panting]
- [Elia] Okay, Ali, John.
- [John] Yeah?
[Elia] How are you guys doing?
Inshallah, our plan
is go tomorrow, camp three.
Like 7,200 meters.
And we will see. The summit push.
- [Elia] Sajid?
- Yeah. Oh.
- [Elia] Excited?
- Oh. Summit, yeah.
K2 in winter. Very excited.
- Yeah.
- [Elia] All right.
[Colin] The route between
camp two and camp three,
um, 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.
[Colin] And you can't really sit still
for very long or you're gonna freeze.
[Elia strains] 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.
[tense music playing]
And Seven Summits were bringing
clients into that environment.
Who are not qualified
to be there in the first place.
[breathlessly] Today I understand
why for so many years
no people climbed, in winter, K2.
Amazingly difficult. Amazingly difficult.
[panting]
[Elia] I'm filming this and I'm just
thinking, "This is really messed up."
- Thank you, Elia.
- [Elia] Okay.
Thank you so much.
[Elia] I mean, it was clear to me
that none of these clients
were going to get to camp three.
[snow beating on microphone]
[ominous music playing]
[Elia] 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.
[wind howling]
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.
[heavy breathing through pump]
[winds whistling]
We're here at camp three.
Um, it's been quite a day.
[breathlessly] Um, but, here now.
Gonna get inside the tent and warm up,
and try to make some good decisions.
[climber 2] This is camp three!
[Colin] 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.
[inhales through teeth]
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.
[Colin] 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.'"
[climber 3 muttering]
[zipper scrapes]
[Colin] 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.
[boots crunching in snow]
[Bernhard, in German]
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?
Huh?
[Colin] 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?"
[camera bleeps]
- [indistinct voice over radio]
- This is a complete disaster.
[coughing]
[Elia] 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."
[Colin, over radio]
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.
[wind rattling tent]
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.
[Colin, over radio] 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.
[Arnold, over radio]
Hi Colin, this is Arnold.
Uh, 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.
[tent rattling]
[Elia] 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.
[Colin] 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."
[Colin] No one has been up here
since Nims, is that right, over?
[Arnold] That's right, over.
[Colin] No shit that's right, over.
[Arnold] Sherpas are also just people,
you know,
you cannot blame them
for not going up in the wind.
[Colin] 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.
[Arnold] Uh, yes. That's a big--
That's a big, big mistake.
[Colin] 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.
[over radio]
There's no tents, no food, and
I think that
some people
will die this night.
[Colin] Obviously I can't understand
any of these guys
so what are they really
fucking saying to each other?
[Arnold] We're trying to make Temba,
who is the leader,
tell everybody they have to go down.
[in Nepali] Please take some people
out of Colin's tent.
We'll need to make adjustments somehow.
[Sherpa, in Nepali]
It's not possible at all.
Half of us are already staying outside.
[Arnold, in English]
The Sherpas are now arguing
with a couple of people
that they have to go down. Uh
Let's hope the Sherpas convince them.
[in German] I couldn't imagine descending.
It would have been
completely impossible, at least for me.
[wind roaring]
[Bernhard] 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.
[ominous music playing]
[Tamara, in English]
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.
[tent rattling]
[in Urdu] 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.
[radio static]
Six people and no one's
boiling any water - did he say that?
[cameraman] Yeah.
[clears throat]
[Elia] 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.
[Arnold] 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.
[Lina] 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.
[wind howling]
But he said he's going for the summit.
[camera bleeps]
Usually, he says, "Goodbye, my love,"
or something like that.
But there, he didn't say it.
It was like
just, "Bye."
- [camera bleeps]
- [silence]
[light wind blowing]
[Sherpa exclaims indistinctly]
[shovel digging into snow]
There it is. The view from camp three.
My high spot.
Need to feel that positive energy and
- Yeah, I also
- [Colin] Too much tension and
- Yeah.
- [Colin] just not, not, not right.
- Yeah.
- [Colin] Something's not right, so
- Yeah, I feel the same.
- [Colin] I had to say
I-- My body felt good, you know.
But
- That's it.
- [Tamara strains] See you down there.
- [Colin] You get down safe, okay?
- Yeah.
[Colin] 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?
- [climber] Colin.
- Just didn't feel right.
- No.
[Colin] Hard to make that call, but
[Noel Hanna] For me it wasn't,
it was just common sense.
[Colin] I said, "My checklist
of ten things I need
to safely make an ascent,
I don't have nine of them."
- [Noel] Yeah, common sense.
- [Colin] Fuck.
That's what I said to them.
[climber] This doesn't work.
[Colin] People were cooked.
No one had slept or rested properly.
Bernhard had really bad
frostbite on his toes.
[Bernhard, in German] 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.
[sighs] You can't really describe it.
[Elia] 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.
[Colin] 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.
[camera bleeps]
After that night at camp three,
he was exhausted.
[climber coughs in background]
[Colin] And exhaustion
can lead to mistakes.
[climber continues coughing]
It's-- 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.
- [camera bleeps]
- [Arnold] You wanna talk to the Sherpa?
- He can explain what happened.
- [girlfriend sobbing]
[Arnold] 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.
[Tamara] 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.
[Mohammad] I heard from Sajid that
he came from Bottleneck,
um, 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.
[Colin] 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.
[Arnold] We lose contact with Ali
and JP and Snorri,
but Sajid is still
in camp three at that moment.
[in Nepali] If you go outside,
be sure to get ready properly.
[Elia] Is he coming down,
or what is he doing?
[in English] 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.
[tense music playing]
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
[Sajid, in English] Base camp. Over.
Sajid, Sajid.
saying, like, "If you don't leave soon,
you're also gonna get stuck up there."
[wind whistling]
[indistinct dialogue]
[Sajid, in English] Thank you.
[in English] Welcome back.
[Mohammad] I was scared.
[speaking Urdu]
[Sajid sobs]
- [speaking Urdu]
- [Sajid continues sobbing]
Sajid!
[indistinct dialogue]
[Sajid coughs]
[dialogue continues indistinctly]
[Tamara] 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.
[exhales]
And this was
nearly breaking my heart.
[Tamara coughs]
[in Urdu] 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.
[indistinct dialogue]
[Sajid] So, they continued climbing up
and my last memory
is seeing them climb up at the Bottleneck.
[Sajid, in English] 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?
[Sajid, in Urdu]
I couldn't tell my mother.
I just told her
that the search mission is going on.
[Elia] You know, earlier on, I said,
you go into these things
hoping something's gonna happen.
[Elia] What do you remember about John?
[Sajid, in English] Oh, John,
he was too motivated, yeah.
He wants summit, yeah.
And he said
that we can't stop, we do this, yeah.
- [Elia] And what about your dad?
- Oh, he was too motivated.
[Elia] Can you say "my father"?
My father was too motivated.
Before, he said,
"It's my dream to climb K2 in winter".
[melancholy music playing]
But then when Sajid
said something along the lines of,
"There's no way that they can survive."
[Elia] Do you have any hope right now,
with the search and rescue?
[Sajid] 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.
[helicopter whirring in background]
[Elia] 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."
[radio static]
[Lina] 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.
[indistinct chatter]
[Mohsin, in Balti] 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.
[in Balti] They should have been careful.
[Mohsin] Yes.
[melancholy music continues]
[Lina] But then when everybody
actually left the mountain
[sighs]
[sniffs]
[exhales]
[voice breaking] well, I came
to realize that maybe he was gone.
[sniffs]
It was kinda the first time that
I knew that
maybe he would not return.
[sighs]
[Colin] 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.
[Angela] 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.
[mouse clicks]
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.
[Elia] So, where were you last
when you saw your dad?
[Sajid] When I last saw, I'm here.
Yeah, they are here,
there is the fixed rope.
Okay.
[Sajid] There, outside.
[Sajid, in Urdu] I wanted to go to K2
and find out what had happened.
[soft, mournful music playing]
As a son, it was my obligation
to find and bury him.
Is it possible to get the body out
and bring it down?
[rescue climber, in Urdu]
The face isn't clear.
Don't upload this to social media, please.
- [Elia] You okay?
- [Sajid, in English] I'm okay.
[Elia] No one's gonna put it
on social media. Don't worry.
[indistinct exclamations]
[Tamara] 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.
[Lina] 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?
[gasps]
[voice breaking] Just to tell him
I forgive him that he will not come home.
And I will take care
of our children and
[Sajid breathing heavily]
[Sajid sobs]
[Sajid] We found the bodies,
and we realized
that they got stuck in the storm.
[Sajid, on mountain] Ya Allahu Akbar.
[Sajid] We didn't find any evidence
that they summit.
[Sajid sniffs]
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.
[mournful music continues]
[in Urdu] I won't say
that the Nepalis betrayed us.
But still, if they had told us,
we could all have done it together.
[Gelje, in Nepali] 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.
[Elia] 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.
[in English] Uh, 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.
[soulful cello music playing]
[Elia] 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.
[Arnold] Well,
I can understand his thinking.
Of course, if you have a bad night,
the next morning, the risks are higher.
Uh, 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?
[Arnold] 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.
[crowd clamoring]
[Arnold] 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.
[Sajid, in Urdu] We have a legacy
and the Sadparas
are famous for mountaineering.
[recites prayer]
[Sajid, in Urdu] 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.
[music fades]
[wind whistling]
[rhythmic instrumental music playing]
[ominous rumbling]
[boom]
- [wind howling]
- [tent rattling violently]
[silence]
- [radio bleeps]
- [wind howling]
[man]
- [radio crackles]
- [silence]
[man 2]
[man]
[radio bleeps]
[man 3, breathlessly]
[wind roaring]
[ominous echo]
[producer, in Icelandic] Camera B.
Damn, you're good at this!
[producer] 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?
[in Icelandic]
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! [laughs]
- [producer responds]
But should I check your pulse?
- [laughs heartily]
- [producer responds indistinctly]
[Lina] 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 uh
go and live on the edge.
- [laughter]
- [indistinct conversation]
[Lina] We have quite a big family
with six children.
[indistinct conversation]
[Lina] 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.
[child laughs]
[John, in Icelandic]
One of the first mountains I climbed
was Mont Blanc, in 2011.
I remember I stood at the top. Uh
I was just waiting
for some feeling to come.
But I felt nothing.
[indistinct announcement
over loud speaker]
[John] It was only when I was descending
and I posted five pictures on Facebook,
that's when it came.
[tense music playing]
[Angela Benavides]
I'm a sport journalist.
I report on mountaineering expeditions.
The time of pioneers,
the time of adventures is gone.
[notification bleeps]
These days, thousands of people
flock to the Himalayas every season.
- [notification bleeps]
- Posting their stories on Instagram.
[notification bleeps]
Especially Everest. It's completely crazy.
[in Icelandic] So, this is where we sleep
tonight apparently.
[Angela] But K2 in Pakistan was different.
It's such a dangerous mountain.
[mouse clicks]
So, John Snorri announcing his intention
to summit K2 in winter,
that really was a story.
[in Icelandic] You have a lot
of time to think, hiking all day,
enjoying the beauty.
It's indescribable. [exhales]
[Angela] 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.
[Elia Saikaly] 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.
[wind whistling]
[Elia] 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.
[climber grunts]
This is the holy grail
for high altitude mountaineers.
There are no more historic records.
K2 winter was the last first.
[distant rumbling]
[wind whistling]
[in Icelandic] Okay, I'll do a lap
if the GoPro works. [strains]
[grunts] Okay.
Okay.
We are the only ones up here,
the only seven people camping on K2.
Here are our supply stations. [straining]
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.
[exclaims]
This is actually our second day.
The first day, crazy weather came
and the mess tent blew away. [sighs]
Mohsin, our chef
and one other person,
they were in the kitchen
when the kitchen just simply blew away.
[Mohsin, in English]
Look, look, look! Avalanche!
[John, in English]
Do you think it'll reach?
[rumbling, clattering]
[echoing] And here is another one! Look!
[man] My God!
[John grunts]
[wind howling]
[Elia] 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.
["Naughty Boy" by Nahid Akhtar plays]
[woman vocalizing]
[Angela] John Snorri had hired
two climbing companions.
Ali Muhammad Sadpara from Pakistan
and Ali's son, Sajid.
[camera shutter clicks]
[song continues]
Naughty boy, naughty boy
[Lina] When you are alone in the mountain,
you get, like, vulnerable.
Ho you come here
Naughty boy
But with Ali and Sajid,
when they start to climb together,
everybody got so close.
[Ali] John, what are you thinking
about wind here?
[John] 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.
- [sing-song] A, B, C.
- [sing-song] A, B, C.
[John, shouting] Can you give me a towel?
- [song continues]
- [shower water splashing]
[Lina] I think Ali
was a little bit like John.
A jolly guy, you know? [laughs]
[John, laughing] Whoa!
[Lina] They had a good time together.
[laughter]
Hey, this is our shower. The best shower.
[Sajid, in Urdu] In our culture,
kids are afraid of their father,
afraid of their scolding.
[in English] Wow, very nice.
[Sajid, in Urdu]
But my father was like a friend.
[song continues]
He began to be seen as a national hero,
but even after his world class
achievements,
he remained humble and simple.
[song continues]
My father and John Snorri
were of the same age and thought alike.
They were like friends.
Ho you come here
[Lina] John was so happy
about this friendship.
I think it was something
that he didn't expect.
Ho you
[John giggles]
Come here
Exercise. Yes.
Naughty boy
Loving this exercise.
[song fades]
[shovel scraping]
[wind whistling]
[sniffles]
[in Icelandic, muffled] We've arrived,
we'll stay for the night,
then go down to base camp.
[sniffles]
[sighs]
It was a rough trek, getting up here.
- [camera bleeps]
- The trio!
The main guy.
Ah.
[Lina] They were alone on the mountain
and
everything was good.
[in Icelandic] 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.
[Lina] But then the other team came.
[Ali, in Urdu] Nimsdai, here?
[bass guitar riff
from "Screen Shot" by Swans plays]
[Sajid, in Urdu] 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.
[Ali speaking Urdu]
Nimsdai was a Himalayan rock star.
[news anchor] here, in the studio,
explorer Nirmal Purja,
better known as Nims--
[reporter]
Nims, just arriving in Kathmandu
after setting a world record
many didn't think possible.
[reporter 2]
Nobody believed that this could be done.
[Angela] 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.
[Nims] So the fastest time
was seven years
and then I said,
"I will do that in seven months."
- That's insane, man.
- Yeah.
[Angela] 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.
[song continues]
Nowadays, nearly everybody has their own,
personal camera operator on an expedition.
[John, in English] Hi, nice to meet you.
[man] You too.
[Angela] And, of course, so had Nims.
[song fades]
[Sandro Gromen-Hayes] The first time
I saw John and Ali,
I took these photos of them.
[camera shutter clicks]
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
[laughing] I think some people
kind of wished he wasn't there.
[John, in English] Who're they?
- [Ali] Nims' Sherpas.
- [John] Ah ha.
Wow! It's like a
It's like a big city.
[Ali] There's Nimsdai!
[John] Who? Where? This guy?
[Ali] This guy? Here?
[multiple voices chattering]
[Sandro] 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.
[speaking Urdu]
[in Urdu] How many are there with you?
[in Urdu] One, John,
and he is absolutely fine.
- He is a very nice person.
- [Nims assents]
- [Sandro] How's it going, Ali?
- [in English] Yeah, everything is good.
Now we are-- 24, 25 days we are here.
- [Sandro] Whoa!
- 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.
[laughs] Yeah.
[Nims, in Urdu] We are planning
to go to camp two tomorrow.
- [in Urdu] Seriously?
- It's no problem at all. [laughs]
[continues in Urdu]
You need a little bit of rest, no?
[Nims] Nimsdai's team rests when we die.
- [laughs, speaks Urdu]
- [Nims laughs]
One should be a bit careful
in the winter
[camera shutter clicks]
[Sandro] 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.
[man] We're here trekking
to K2 base camp in the Karakoram.
The whole mountaineering scene
was kind of getting really itchy feet
through COVID.
[in Spanish] Practically no one here.
[Sandro] And then suddenly the first
big expedition to be open to Westerners
was K2 winter.
[mouse clicks]
That's right. A few tents back there,
that's K2 base camp. We did it.
Woohoo!
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.
[Colin] 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.
[Colin] 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."
Um, you know,
those are big words, obviously.
[mouse clicks]
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
Um, it's just a brutal situation.
[panting]
And then I had just thought, intuitively,
winter, there's just gonna be deeper snow
and potential for more avalanches.
[camera bleeps]
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 thuds]
- [climber] Rock!
[Colin] 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.
[rock clatters and thuds]
[Tamara Lunger] 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.
[in German, breathlessly]
I've been waiting for the sunrise,
counting the minutes until the sun comes.
[moans]
[Tamara, in English] Up there, in winter,
I never felt so alone.
[gasping]
[Tamara] Even if you're in a team,
you cannot look after somebody else.
Everybody goes for his or her own life.
[heavy breathing]
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.
[indistinct shouting and chatter]
[Colin] 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.
- [indistinct conversation]
- [Tamara] I met Sergi and JP.
They were such strong mountaineers.
And I felt immediately connected.
[sing-song] I don't want to pitch a tent.
[Tamara] Especially to JP,
because he seemed so beautiful to me.
Woohoo.
But K2 winter is really something
fucking hard, you know?
Um, and I think that some of the people
in the base camp
were not aware about this fact.
[Colin] Quite the party going on here.
That's for sure.
[scattered chatter]
[Arnold Coster] So half the group
were experienced climbers.
Uh, the other half were novices.
I think those people
had no idea what they got into.
- [climber] 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.
[rhythmic instrumental music playing]
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."
[in Polish] Seven and a half hours.
[laughs] I didn't expect it
to be that much.
[speaks Polish, laughs]
[Arnold] 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.
[camera bleeps]
But the fun part about my job
is that people come from everywhere.
All different backgrounds.
- [Arnold] Can be a housewife
- [man] Hello!
[Arnold] can be an athlete,
can be a business owner.
[camera bleeps]
[pulsing music playing]
[Bernhard Lippert, in German]
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.
[mouse clicks]
- [dance music plays through speaker]
- [laughter]
[Elia] 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.
[climber cheering]
[Elia] 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.
[dance music plays]
[JP] This is how
we're doing the expedition.
[music and laughter continue faintly]
Ah.
[in Icelandic] 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.
[boots crunching in snow]
[Lina] 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.
[John, in Icelandic] 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. [sniffles]
[tents rattling in the wind]
[Lina, over phone] Hi.
[John, in Icelandic] Hi, sweetie.
What's up?
[Lina, in Icelandic] All good, and you?
[John] Everything's okay.
[Lina] Yeah?
What's up?
[John] There are so many people
up in the camps.
[Lina] Yes.
[John] There are so many people here.
[Lina, on recording]
I know all of this is really tough
but you have to try to be strong somehow.
Just be smart in this competition.
[John] Yes, I know. I have to be smart.
[Lina] Okay, sweetie. I love you.
[John] I love you too, sweetie.
[Lina] Okay, good night.
- [John] Speak tomorrow.
- Yes.
[John] Bye.
[Colin] Traditionally on the route,
there are five camps above base camp.
[Colin, in video]
Camp one's roughly there.
Camp two, up into there.
Camp three, back in there.
Then, backside of that,
Bottleneck to the summit.
[Colin] 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.
[Colin] Climbing up!
[Colin] 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.
[man, in Polish] How's it going?
[in Polish] Hot
hard [chuckles]
and I feel alive! [chuckles]
[Colin] 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.
[exhales vocally]
[Colin] 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.
[Angela] I mean, you should speak
to the Sherpas about that.
[camera bleeps]
[producer] Why?
[Angela] Because no one
wants to be the bad guy, right?
But the competition was there.
[Gelje Sherpa, in Nepali] 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.
- [in English] Guys, this is, I think
- [man coughs]
25-year-old Chivas.
'Cause today is New Year's Eve,
we need to celebrate.
[Gelje, in Nepali] That night it was
New Year's Eve for the Westerners.
[upbeat traditional music plays]
[all laughing]
[Gelje] But the Nepalese team had started
speaking and planning privately.
[in Nepali] If it's a foreigner,
I'd rather fucking die
but I won't let them get ahead.
I'm being straight with you.
- [team laughs]
- [Nims speaking Nepali]
[Angela] That night was
the beginning of a change of strategy.
Which became much more nationalistic.
[Nims speaking Nepali]
[Angela] What I didn't know
was that the expedition co-leader
of the Seven Summit Trek team was there.
[Arnold] 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.
[man] 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.
- [man laughs]
[Arnold] 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.
[in Nepali] All I want is a record
for Nepal. More than anything.
[in Nepali] Rest assured
it will be Nepal on top.
Until we fix the ropes ahead,
the foreigners can't go.
[man, in Nepali] I hope none of them get
there first. I hope it's only Nepalese.
[Nims, in Nepali] 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.
[Nims, in English] Happy New Year.
[all] Happy New Year.
[all speaking Nepali]
[Gelje, in Nepali] My first job
was to collect yak dung
to make briquettes for fuel.
[faint music, whooping]
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.
- [indistinct shouting]
- [applause]
[wind roaring]
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.
[Lina, in Icelandic] So, is it just you
with the Nepalis and Pakistanis?
[John] Yes.
[Lina] No other foreigner?
[John] No one else, no.
[Lina, in English]
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.
[upbeat Shina song plays on speaker]
[John, in Icelandic]
We are working together.
That is a huge step forward
and in the next window,
we can try to reach the summit.
[Lina, in Icelandic] Yes.
[song continues]
[Ali sings along]
[all cheer]
[indistinct chatter]
[in Nepali] 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.
[in English] And we're done.
Thank you, brother.
[Lina, in English] So the weather window
they agreed on with the Sherpas
was around the 16th.
- [Ali, in English] Sunny there, John?
- Yeah.
A-hay! Lemon juice.
[Lina] So, in the morning,
they were waiting for the call from Nims
to summit together.
John Snorri, five star hotel!
[Colin] 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.
[Sajid, in English]
Camp 2 for base camp, over.
[Colin] But later on we noticed that Nims
and the Nepalese had gone quiet.
Complete radio silence.
- Camp 2, over.
- [John coughs]
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.
[tense music playing]
[Sajid, in Urdu] 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.
[Lina] 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.
Wow.
[in English] No wind, huh?
[Lina] It was over.
The Nepalese wanted to take
the summit for their nation.
It was clearly the plan.
[John clears throat]
[in Urdu] I could see the disappointment
on their faces.
They were quite shocked.
[wind blustering]
[Colin] Later that night,
the Nepalese started coming down.
[Tamara] 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, uh, they were just excluded.
[man] Congrats.
[Colin] 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.
[climber coughs]
[Colin] 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."
[in Nepali] 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.
[camera bleeps]
This was about 10 times harder
than any mountain I've climbed.
I got frostbite on my cheeks,
so I was also really scared.
[camera bleeps]
Very few people
achieve a world record in life.
It's something I'm very proud of.
[camera bleeps]
[Sandro] 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.
[camera clicks]
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.
[film reel whirring]
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.
[Colin] Congratulations, man.
Well deserved.
[Sandro] 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. [laughs]
[wind rushing]
[Magdalena] 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."
Um, and I just grabbed,
the fastest I could,
like, the GoPro
that I had in my internal pocket.
In my down suit.
- [wind battering]
- [rolling thuds]
[camera bleeps]
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.
- [Oswald] You saw what happened?
- Huh?
- [Oswald] You saw what happened?
- I don't know.
[Oswald] You will go down
to see what's happened. Yes? Okay.
I went after Juan Pablo.
[camera bleeps]
The closer I was getting, I understood
that there is a person laying down
um, on the floor, on the rocks.
And then Tamara said, "It's Sergi."
[cheering indistinctly]
[Angela] Sergi Mingote was perhaps
the most experienced climber
on the mountain.
He was climbing
with his friend, Juan Pablo Mohr.
[Tamara] 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."
[camera clicks]
[soft, slow notes playing]
When he fell down
I was so under shock,
that my body is just functioning.
There is no emotion allowed.
[Oswald] 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.
[indistinct chatter]
- [camera bleeps]
- [indistinct chatter]
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.
[Arnold] 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?
[Tamara] 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."
[Oswald] Yeah, first thing tomorrow,
everyone was going home.
The Nepali team climbed the mountain.
Sergi died.
It was, like, no point to be here.
[Colin] 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.
[conversing indistinctly]
[Tamara] 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 bam!
I saw Ali completely different.
[wind buffeting microphone]
He was a bit nervous of this tension,
so I think he was not sure what to do now.
[sorrowful piano music playing]
[Sajid, in Urdu] 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.
[helicopter whirring]
[dramatic, pulsing music playing]
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.
[music continues]
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.
[Arnold] 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.
[Elia] 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.
[Elia] And go for it.
[Lina] 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.
[pulsing music continues]
[in English] Now, what do you think
about the camp?
- [Ali chuckles]
- Getting empty, huh?
- Yeah, it is.
- How many people left this morning?
This morning maybe 14,
15 people left, yeah.
[John] Yeah. Uy-uy-uy.
Inshallah, we also go with heli.
No, no, no. When we-- After we summit,
- we stay here celebrate.
- Yes.
- In base camp.
- In base camp.
[Colin] Ali and John had been there
for a couple months at this point.
And so they decide, "We're going for it."
- [distant rumbling]
- The rest of us had planned to leave.
You see avalanche over there?
[Ali] 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?"
[camera clicks]
[Tamara] 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."
[Oswald] Somehow I felt
like Juan Pablo and Tamara were,
like, the most experienced.
And they were, like, important persons
to shape also my opinion.
[camera clicks]
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.
[Arnold] 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.
[indistinct voice over phone]
[Angela] Then there came news
of another possible summit window.
[John] Do you have, like,
a timetable of the wind,
when the wind will start to slow down?
I understand that, but I'm try--
[indistinct voice over phone]
I am trying to understand.
Yeah, you don't understand me.
[indistinct voice over phone]
Uh, Jan, could you se--
- [indistinct voice over phone]
- Don't speak any English.
Okay, Jan. I wait-- You send me now.
You send me now. Okay?
- Bye-bye.
- [phone beeps]
Oof, he don't speak any English.
Stuck.
[John] 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. Mm-hmm.
If we couldn't, I would say no.
But we can use it.
And we will try to use it. We will use it.
[climber] I might even use it.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
I think this is our shot.
- Very good.
- Yeah.
[smacks lips]
Excellent.
[Ali] Mm-hmm.
Yes.
[indistinct chatter]
[Arnold] 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.
Uh, 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.
[Arnold] 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.
[Magdalena] 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.
[wind whistling]
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.
[wind howling]
- [climber] Nice morning.
- [John] Oh, yeah.
[John] See you up there.
See you up there, brother. Take care.
[John] Take care. Be careful of the rocks.
[Bernhard] I think you're on the mountain.
[John] Yeah, see you on the mountain.
[ominous music playing]
[Colin] 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?
[in Italian] Here we are at camp one.
[in English] JP, tell me something.
We are motivated [laughs]
for summit.
[Tamara] I don't know,
we will see.
No pressure, no pressure.
[JP] Pressure.
[Magdalena] 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.
[coughs]
But probably it saved
my life too. [wry chuckle]
[wind howling]
[Colin] 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.
[panting]
- [Elia] Okay, Ali, John.
- [John] Yeah?
[Elia] How are you guys doing?
Inshallah, our plan
is go tomorrow, camp three.
Like 7,200 meters.
And we will see. The summit push.
- [Elia] Sajid?
- Yeah. Oh.
- [Elia] Excited?
- Oh. Summit, yeah.
K2 in winter. Very excited.
- Yeah.
- [Elia] All right.
[Colin] The route between
camp two and camp three,
um, 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.
[Colin] And you can't really sit still
for very long or you're gonna freeze.
[Elia strains] 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.
[tense music playing]
And Seven Summits were bringing
clients into that environment.
Who are not qualified
to be there in the first place.
[breathlessly] Today I understand
why for so many years
no people climbed, in winter, K2.
Amazingly difficult. Amazingly difficult.
[panting]
[Elia] I'm filming this and I'm just
thinking, "This is really messed up."
- Thank you, Elia.
- [Elia] Okay.
Thank you so much.
[Elia] I mean, it was clear to me
that none of these clients
were going to get to camp three.
[snow beating on microphone]
[ominous music playing]
[Elia] 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.
[wind howling]
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.
[heavy breathing through pump]
[winds whistling]
We're here at camp three.
Um, it's been quite a day.
[breathlessly] Um, but, here now.
Gonna get inside the tent and warm up,
and try to make some good decisions.
[climber 2] This is camp three!
[Colin] 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.
[inhales through teeth]
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.
[Colin] 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.'"
[climber 3 muttering]
[zipper scrapes]
[Colin] 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.
[boots crunching in snow]
[Bernhard, in German]
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?
Huh?
[Colin] 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?"
[camera bleeps]
- [indistinct voice over radio]
- This is a complete disaster.
[coughing]
[Elia] 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."
[Colin, over radio]
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.
[wind rattling tent]
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.
[Colin, over radio] 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.
[Arnold, over radio]
Hi Colin, this is Arnold.
Uh, 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.
[tent rattling]
[Elia] 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.
[Colin] 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."
[Colin] No one has been up here
since Nims, is that right, over?
[Arnold] That's right, over.
[Colin] No shit that's right, over.
[Arnold] Sherpas are also just people,
you know,
you cannot blame them
for not going up in the wind.
[Colin] 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.
[Arnold] Uh, yes. That's a big--
That's a big, big mistake.
[Colin] 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.
[over radio]
There's no tents, no food, and
I think that
some people
will die this night.
[Colin] Obviously I can't understand
any of these guys
so what are they really
fucking saying to each other?
[Arnold] We're trying to make Temba,
who is the leader,
tell everybody they have to go down.
[in Nepali] Please take some people
out of Colin's tent.
We'll need to make adjustments somehow.
[Sherpa, in Nepali]
It's not possible at all.
Half of us are already staying outside.
[Arnold, in English]
The Sherpas are now arguing
with a couple of people
that they have to go down. Uh
Let's hope the Sherpas convince them.
[in German] I couldn't imagine descending.
It would have been
completely impossible, at least for me.
[wind roaring]
[Bernhard] 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.
[ominous music playing]
[Tamara, in English]
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.
[tent rattling]
[in Urdu] 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.
[radio static]
Six people and no one's
boiling any water - did he say that?
[cameraman] Yeah.
[clears throat]
[Elia] 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.
[Arnold] 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.
[Lina] 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.
[wind howling]
But he said he's going for the summit.
[camera bleeps]
Usually, he says, "Goodbye, my love,"
or something like that.
But there, he didn't say it.
It was like
just, "Bye."
- [camera bleeps]
- [silence]
[light wind blowing]
[Sherpa exclaims indistinctly]
[shovel digging into snow]
There it is. The view from camp three.
My high spot.
Need to feel that positive energy and
- Yeah, I also
- [Colin] Too much tension and
- Yeah.
- [Colin] just not, not, not right.
- Yeah.
- [Colin] Something's not right, so
- Yeah, I feel the same.
- [Colin] I had to say
I-- My body felt good, you know.
But
- That's it.
- [Tamara strains] See you down there.
- [Colin] You get down safe, okay?
- Yeah.
[Colin] 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?
- [climber] Colin.
- Just didn't feel right.
- No.
[Colin] Hard to make that call, but
[Noel Hanna] For me it wasn't,
it was just common sense.
[Colin] I said, "My checklist
of ten things I need
to safely make an ascent,
I don't have nine of them."
- [Noel] Yeah, common sense.
- [Colin] Fuck.
That's what I said to them.
[climber] This doesn't work.
[Colin] People were cooked.
No one had slept or rested properly.
Bernhard had really bad
frostbite on his toes.
[Bernhard, in German] 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.
[sighs] You can't really describe it.
[Elia] 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.
[Colin] 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.
[camera bleeps]
After that night at camp three,
he was exhausted.
[climber coughs in background]
[Colin] And exhaustion
can lead to mistakes.
[climber continues coughing]
It's-- 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.
- [camera bleeps]
- [Arnold] You wanna talk to the Sherpa?
- He can explain what happened.
- [girlfriend sobbing]
[Arnold] 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.
[Tamara] 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.
[Mohammad] I heard from Sajid that
he came from Bottleneck,
um, 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.
[Colin] 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.
[Arnold] We lose contact with Ali
and JP and Snorri,
but Sajid is still
in camp three at that moment.
[in Nepali] If you go outside,
be sure to get ready properly.
[Elia] Is he coming down,
or what is he doing?
[in English] 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.
[tense music playing]
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
[Sajid, in English] Base camp. Over.
Sajid, Sajid.
saying, like, "If you don't leave soon,
you're also gonna get stuck up there."
[wind whistling]
[indistinct dialogue]
[Sajid, in English] Thank you.
[in English] Welcome back.
[Mohammad] I was scared.
[speaking Urdu]
[Sajid sobs]
- [speaking Urdu]
- [Sajid continues sobbing]
Sajid!
[indistinct dialogue]
[Sajid coughs]
[dialogue continues indistinctly]
[Tamara] 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.
[exhales]
And this was
nearly breaking my heart.
[Tamara coughs]
[in Urdu] 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.
[indistinct dialogue]
[Sajid] So, they continued climbing up
and my last memory
is seeing them climb up at the Bottleneck.
[Sajid, in English] 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?
[Sajid, in Urdu]
I couldn't tell my mother.
I just told her
that the search mission is going on.
[Elia] You know, earlier on, I said,
you go into these things
hoping something's gonna happen.
[Elia] What do you remember about John?
[Sajid, in English] Oh, John,
he was too motivated, yeah.
He wants summit, yeah.
And he said
that we can't stop, we do this, yeah.
- [Elia] And what about your dad?
- Oh, he was too motivated.
[Elia] Can you say "my father"?
My father was too motivated.
Before, he said,
"It's my dream to climb K2 in winter".
[melancholy music playing]
But then when Sajid
said something along the lines of,
"There's no way that they can survive."
[Elia] Do you have any hope right now,
with the search and rescue?
[Sajid] 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.
[helicopter whirring in background]
[Elia] 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."
[radio static]
[Lina] 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.
[indistinct chatter]
[Mohsin, in Balti] 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.
[in Balti] They should have been careful.
[Mohsin] Yes.
[melancholy music continues]
[Lina] But then when everybody
actually left the mountain
[sighs]
[sniffs]
[exhales]
[voice breaking] well, I came
to realize that maybe he was gone.
[sniffs]
It was kinda the first time that
I knew that
maybe he would not return.
[sighs]
[Colin] 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.
[Angela] 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.
[mouse clicks]
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.
[Elia] So, where were you last
when you saw your dad?
[Sajid] When I last saw, I'm here.
Yeah, they are here,
there is the fixed rope.
Okay.
[Sajid] There, outside.
[Sajid, in Urdu] I wanted to go to K2
and find out what had happened.
[soft, mournful music playing]
As a son, it was my obligation
to find and bury him.
Is it possible to get the body out
and bring it down?
[rescue climber, in Urdu]
The face isn't clear.
Don't upload this to social media, please.
- [Elia] You okay?
- [Sajid, in English] I'm okay.
[Elia] No one's gonna put it
on social media. Don't worry.
[indistinct exclamations]
[Tamara] 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.
[Lina] 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?
[gasps]
[voice breaking] Just to tell him
I forgive him that he will not come home.
And I will take care
of our children and
[Sajid breathing heavily]
[Sajid sobs]
[Sajid] We found the bodies,
and we realized
that they got stuck in the storm.
[Sajid, on mountain] Ya Allahu Akbar.
[Sajid] We didn't find any evidence
that they summit.
[Sajid sniffs]
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.
[mournful music continues]
[in Urdu] I won't say
that the Nepalis betrayed us.
But still, if they had told us,
we could all have done it together.
[Gelje, in Nepali] 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.
[Elia] 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.
[in English] Uh, 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.
[soulful cello music playing]
[Elia] 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.
[Arnold] Well,
I can understand his thinking.
Of course, if you have a bad night,
the next morning, the risks are higher.
Uh, 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?
[Arnold] 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.
[crowd clamoring]
[Arnold] 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.
[Sajid, in Urdu] We have a legacy
and the Sadparas
are famous for mountaineering.
[recites prayer]
[Sajid, in Urdu] 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.
[music fades]
[wind whistling]
[rhythmic instrumental music playing]