K2 Disaster: Alone in the Death Zone

Catastrophe unfolds on one of the deadliest mountains on Earth - the mighty K2. When a massive ice fall hits the peak and their ascent spirals into chaos, Wilco van Rooijen and his teammates will find themselves trapped at extreme altitude in the ‘Death Zone’. But it’s not just the dizzying heights that Wilco must contend with. When a hasty decision robs him of one of his senses, he will be forced to make a drastic, death-defying choice… A Noiser podcast production. Hosted by John Hopkins. Written by Joe Viner | Produced by Ed Baranski | Assistant Producer: Luke Lonergan | Production Assistant: Chris McDonald | Exec produced by Joel Duddell | Sound Supervisor: Matt Peaty | Sound design by Jacob Booth | Assembly edit by Rob Plummer | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: Cian Ryan-Morgan. For more on this story read Wilco’s book Surviving K2. For ad-free listening, bonus material and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Click the subscription banner at the top of the feed to get started. Or go to noiser.com/subscriptions If you have an amazing survival story of your own that you’d like to put forward for the show, let us know. Drop us an email at [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:05Speaker 00

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• 0:21Speaker 01

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• 0:39John Hopkins?

  It is the evening of August the 1st, 2008. In the northernmost reaches of Pakistan, along the 500-mile fault in the earth where the Indian subcontinent smashes into the rest of Asia, we'll find a vertical world of ice and rock.

• 0:56John Hopkins?

  The vast Karakoram Range.

• 1:00John Hopkins?

  With over 60 peaks exceeding 7,000 meters, the Karakoram contains the greatest concentration of high-altitude mountains anywhere on the planet. And of these, none is taller or mightier than K2.

• 1:16John Hopkins?

  Straddling the border with China, the world's second-highest mountain looms imperiously over the snow-capped peaks that surround it. An immense slab of glaciated granite puncturing the troposphere. Due to its exposed northern location, K2 is notorious for its severe and unpredictable weather. For much of the year, the mountain remains shrouded in a mantle of freezing mist, pelted by blizzards and raked by high-velocity winds. As a result, K2 has acquired a fearsome reputation among mountaineers.

• 1:53John Hopkins?

  In 1953, an American climber named George Bell, reeling from his failed attempt to reach the summit, described K2 as "a savage mountain that tries to kill you."

• 2:08John Hopkins?

  And indeed, it can sometimes seem as if K2 possesses a will of its own. Its slopes forever shifting and rearranging themselves with great roaring avalanches and thunderous rockfalls, as if the violent tectonic forces that created this mountain are still reverberating.

• 2:27John Hopkins?

  But tonight, the slopes of K2 are quiet.

• 2:32John Hopkins?

  A day of fair weather has passed into a still, clear evening, and from base camp to summit, a heavy silence hangs in the thin alpine air.

• 2:43John Hopkins?

  For the eight climbers picking their way down the sloping snowfield east of the summit, these are good conditions to make a descent, a rare window of calm.

• 2:54John Hopkins?

  And then, the mountain wakes up.

• 2:59John Hopkins?

  At about 8:00 PM local time, a massive chunk of ice detaches itself from the lip of a hanging glacier a few hundred feet below the summit. A terrifying roar thunders in the darkness as several tons of broken, fragmented ice go shrieking down the slope. Though it misses the climbers on the snowfield, the falling ice crashes directly across the marked route they intend to follow, obliterating everything in its path.

• 3:28John Hopkins?

  The fixed ropes, the ice screws, the route markers, all are swept away in the deluge.

• 3:36John Hopkins?

  By the time it stops, the icefall has erased everything that the climbers are relying on to get down, leaving them stranded.

• 3:46John Hopkins?

  Dutch climber Wilco van Royen is one of them.

• 3:51Speaker 03

  Imagine you're coming back from the summit, convinced that the ropes are there. That is just a matter of clicking into the ropes, following the lines, and get back, and you can't find the ropes. Nobody could have imagined that your rope would be gone. Normally, a rope is breaking, and then you see some flaps hanging. You fix it, and you go on. But in this case, the rope was all the way gone. We were trapped.

• 4:26John Hopkins?

  Ever wondered what you would do when disaster strikes? If your life depended on your next decision, could you make the right choice? Welcome to Real Survival Stories. These are the astonishing tales of ordinary people thrown into extraordinary situations, people suddenly forced to fight for their lives.

• 4:46John Hopkins?

  In this episode, we meet 40-year-old mountaineer Wilco van Royen. In the summer of 2008, Wilco is leading an expedition up one of the world's most iconic mountains, the colossal K2. Things are going to plan until the descent, when a massive icefall leaves the climbers stranded without fixed ropes. Oblivious to what exactly has happened, Wilco and his fellow climbers will spend hours searching for the ropes, all the while running down the clock on how long their bodies can safely exist at this extreme altitude, the so-called "death zone."

• 5:26Speaker 03

  There is a limitation for every human being because we can't survive at an eight-kilometers-high. There is a lack of oxygen, you will die. The only question is, what kind of period can you survive?

• 5:39John Hopkins?

  Soon, it won't be just the dizzying altitude that Wilco is contending with. Besieged by cold and plagued by dehydration, the Dutchman's situation will go from bad to worse, when a hasty decision robs him of one of his senses, and he is forced to make a drastic, death-defying choice.

• 5:58Speaker 03

  It was to be or not to be. So for me, you know, it was not a rational decision, it was just my gut feeling, you know, that I knew if I don't take action right now, I'm done.

• 6:10John Hopkins?

  I'm John Hopkins. From the Noiser Podcast Network, this is Real Survival Stories.

• 6:43John Hopkins?

  It's July 30, 2008, 17,000 feet above sea level. In Pakistan's Karakoram Mountains, amid an amphitheater of sawtooth granite ridge lines, a collection of tents stands on a snow-flecked plateau of shingle and moraine.

• 7:01John Hopkins?

  This is K2 Base Camp, the staging post for those attempting to conquer the world's second-tallest mountain.

• 7:09John Hopkins?

  On this summer's evening, Base Camp is busier than usual. Weeks of bad weather have prevented any summit attempts on K2, which has caused a backlog of frustrated climbers. Eight separate expedition teams have converged on Base Camp, where they can do little but sit and wait and hope conditions improve.

• 7:30John Hopkins?

  Among those anxiously checking the forecast is Dutch mountaineer Wilco van Royen.

• 7:35Speaker 03

  When there is no opportunity in the weather, sometimes K2 is never being climbed, not every year, like Mount Everest, because the snowfall is heavier. So there are many years that K2 haven't been climbed because, you know, there was not a window in the weather system.

• 7:54John Hopkins?

  Wilco walks to the edge of camp and looks north through gaps in the swirling cloud towards the looming bulk of K2.

• 8:03John Hopkins?

  The mountain's south face is an almost perfect pyramid of ice, shaded black in areas where huge fists of granite punch through the snow.

• 8:13John Hopkins?

  Wilco is 40 years old. He has spiky silver hair, glacial-blue eyes, and a single hoop earring that glints in his left ear.

• 8:24John Hopkins?

  He is the leader of an international expedition team, which has been stalled here at Base Camp for almost three months.

• 8:31John Hopkins?

  They've spent some of that time prepping routes and making practice climbs on lower peaks. But there's only one real reason they're here. And with July almost over, the truth is unavoidable. They're running out of time to summit K2.

• 8:48Speaker 03

  Most of accidents happened in August, so we said to each other, "We won't climb in August. You are too late. The humidity is getting higher and higher, the avalanche danger, et cetera, et cetera."

• 9:00John Hopkins?

  At just over 8,600 meters, or 28,000 feet, the summit of K2 sits squarely in the path of the subtropical jet stream, a fast-flowing vortex of air that circulates year-round and batters the mountain with brutal hurricane-force winds.

• 9:19John Hopkins?

  In July, the jet stream shifts north, providing a brief window of relatively temperate weather for climbers to make a dash for the summit. This year, the strong winds have persisted longer than usual, creating the backlog at Base Camp.

• 9:34John Hopkins?

  The climbing teams must be on their toes, poised to take advantage of even the slightest uptick in the weather. But seizing that opportunity is a delicate balancing act. Warmer temperatures can bring their own set of dangers, increasing the risk of icefalls, collapsing snow bridges, and avalanches. As they near August, the window of opportunity shrinks. Soon, it will slam shut altogether.

• 10:03John Hopkins?

  But just as Wilco and his team are beginning to resign themselves to disappointment, the forecast suddenly improves.

• 10:10Speaker 03

  In this case, it is unbelievable. Our weather forecast man predicted on the 31 of July, would it almost be hardly no wind on the summit? That was our last and biggest opportunity in this three months. So all the teams knew, okay, we have to go on the 31.

• 10:33John Hopkins?

  Action stations. In the pre-dawn darkness of the 31st of July, Wilco and his team join the 30 or so other climbers embarking from Base Camp to the next waypoint.

• 10:47John Hopkins?

  Wilco has made two prior attempts to summit K2. Both were unsuccessful. Now, as dawn breaks over the Karakoram, you can only hope that it will be third-time lucky.

• 11:03John Hopkins?

  Wilco van Royen groeide in Utrecht, een afbeeldig kanallijnde stad in de Nederland. Het is een ironisch deel van de wereld waar een bergklimperen voor heen klopt. Met meer een vierde van zijn gebied onder de zee, is Nederland een van de flatste landen op de aarde. Het heeft kindertijdstrijden naar Zwitserland nodig om Wilco’s passie voor bergklimpering te sturen.

• 11:27Speaker 03

  Ik werd gebouwd in een ongelooflijke familie. Mijn vader was een hardwerking man, twee ouders. En mijn vader had een passie om elk jaar naar de bergjes te gaan. We gingen naar de Zwischers Alpen. We deden niet extreme dingen, alleen, je weet, te lopen tot ongeveer 3000 meter of wat.

• 11:46John Hopkins?

  Inspireerd door deze familieholidays, jong Wilco continueerde om zijn nieuwgevende passie terug te houden. Hij begon bergklimperinggroepen in de Nederland, ontmoette likegevende Duitse klimperen en verenigde zich voor gerichte reden in de Alpen. Het was niet lang voordat hij zijn professionele kwalificaties hield.

• 12:05Speaker 03

  Ik deed mijn eerste en tweede cursussen.最后我成为了一个指导员。 Ik ontmoette mijn beste klimperen vrienden, en het belangrijkste is Kast van de Gevel. Ik klimde eigenlijk alle moeilijke noordvelden in de Alpen, zoals Eigennoordveld, Kranders-Jurassus, Matherooren.

• 12:26John Hopkins?

  Met zijn klimperenpartner, Kast van de Gevel, wilke completeerde sommige van de meest iconische route in Europese bergklimpering. Maar hij had altijd zijn ogen op grotere uitdagingen. In 1995, 28 jaar, begon hij een reden naar Azië om nieuwe routes op de notabel moeilijke K2 te onderzoeken.

• 12:46John Hopkins?

  Het was zijn eerste ervaring met een berg op die schaal, en het eindte disasterlijk.

• 12:53John Hopkins?

  Wilco was bijna gediept door een rokfallen, en moest de aeronautische lift af de sloepen.

• 12:58Speaker 03

  Toen ik in het ziekenhuis was, de enige dingen die ik dacht, ik had echt, echt slechte kans. En iedereen zei me: “Nee, je was echt graag, want je bent nog er leven.” Dus ik brak mijn huid, mijn armen, ik verloor een half liter bloed. Dus iedereen zei: “Het kan zijn dat je dood is.” En natuurlijk zei ik: “Ja, het kan zijn.” Maar in mijn hoofd dacht ik nooit dat ik terug zou gaan.

• 13:24John Hopkins?

  Wilcos verkeer merkend de zorg dat hij soms terugkomen wilde. Maar in het midden, misschien zou het geen slechte idee zijn om zijn kennis te zetten.

• 13:35Speaker 03

  Ik deed de drie polen, Noordpol, Zuidpol, Everest. Ik kreeg de Explorers Grand Slam, dus klimt alles de hoogste bergjes van alle continenten en sluit naar de Noord- en Zuidpol. En dan dacht ik: “Oké, nu ben ik bereid om terug te gaan naar K2.”

• 13:53John Hopkins?

  Deze oktober op de Noiza Podcast Network. “Real Dictators” terugkomt. We zijn in de Dominicaanse Republiek voor de verhaal van Rafael Trujillo. Op “Short History of,” onderzoeken we de geheimen van de Hoover Dam en volgen Mary Shelley, de creëer van Frankenstein en zijn monster. Op “Real Survival Stories,” een moderne vikingadventuur als een replica noordwensel opziet op een duidelijke reis over de Noordseer. En een man is gekeken door, alleen, op de top van de wereld. In “Jane Austen Stories,” Emma volgt met Dame Julie Andrews. En in “Sherlock Holmes Short Stories,” Holmes en Watson ontdekken een epische mysterie van geheimen en doden in de Signe de Four.

• 14:36John Hopkins?

  Kijk alle deze shows en meer eerst en gratis op Noiza+.

• 14:44John Hopkins?

  Van 2006 werd Wilco een van de meest uitgebreidste bergklimperen en aardigere bergklimperen. Eleven jaar is gegaan sinds zijn eerste verkeerde poging om K2 te klimmen. Door elke metriek was hij nu een veel sterkere en meer kennisbare klimperen. En nogmaals, Wilcos tweede poging om K2 te sommeteren, verloor ook. Hij attribueert dit aan een ongehecht cohesie tussen de reden.

• 15:09Speaker 03

  Het was geen succes, want we waren geen een echte team. We waren een groep individuen. En dan dacht ik: “Oké, je weet, als ik echt terug wil gaan, dan moet ik investeren in een echte team.”

• 15:25John Hopkins?

  Van 2008 had Wilco besloten om het nog een keer te proberen. Deze keer would hij met zenuw de team zelf zorgveel zetten, handpikken een krachtig squad van elite klimperen, mensen die hij kende en vertrouwde. Tussen de memoren van Wilcos actueel team zijn zijn langgevende klimperenpartner, Kast van de Gevel, Irish Bergklimperer Gerard McDonald en Pemba Gilgi, een vastgegeven ervaren Nepalees klimperen. Dit is een team met serieus pedigree. En nogmaals...

• 15:55Speaker 03

  Ik wist dat het niet automatisch waardoor dat ik terug zou komen van deze berg, want K2 heeft nog statistica op één op vier. Dus, je weet, als je klimt met acht mensen, waarschijnlijk heb je een grote kans om te verliezen twee mensen.

• 16:14John Hopkins?

  Terwijl K2 800 meter korter is dan Everest, is K2 gezien veel moeilijker te klimmen, en minstens zes keer meer dodend. Het is stijger, meer isoler, en doordat het meer noordelijk locatie heeft, is het geïnspireerd op meer extreme weer, met harder winden en koude temperaturen. De dodelijkstatistiek zegt dit. Als van 2008, voor elke vier mensen die K2’s sommeteren, alleen drie zullen terug kunnen komen leven. Iedere klimperen moet deze heel echte risque dood komen. Vooral als, zoals Wilco, ze hebben families die voor hen terugkomen.

• 16:54Speaker 03

  Als je bijeenkomt thuis, voor mij in dat geval, je weet, aan mijn vrouw en mijn jongen van zeven maanden, je moet minstens een letter schrijven om te zorgen dat als je niet terugkomt van deze berg, en je jongen, of mijn jongen in dit geval, dat hij nog steeds deze letter kan lezen, en hoop dat hij begrijpt waarom zijn vader dit deed. En het is niet makkelijk, want wanneer ik op de airport en zeg ik bijeenkom aan mijn vrouw, is het niet zo makkelijk, want je weet niet of je terugkomt. Maar natuurlijk doe je het, want je hebt veel ervaring, je hebt de beste budget, je hebt de beste meteorologen, de beste klimperen.

• 17:32John Hopkins?

  In het uiteindelijk alles wat iedere klimperen kan doen, is bereiden. Voor Wilco, is bereidheid over het leren van de omgeving van zijn capaciteiten, en meten die capaciteiten tegen alle hypothetische standpaktjes.

• 17:45Speaker 03

  Er is een beperking voor elke mens, want we kunnen niet overleven op 8 kilometer hoogte. Er is een ongeluk aan de oxigentje, je zal dood. De enige vraag is: welk soort periode kan je overleven? Is het één dag, twee dagen, drie dagen? Je probeert het in één dag te doen. Dat is goed, maar wat zal er gebeuren als het niet succesvol is in 24 uur? Dus toen ik trainde, probeerde ik te immagineren wat kan gebeuren op deze berg als dingen niet volgens de plan zijn. En ik kan je garantieen, redenen zijn nooit volgens de plan.

• 18:30John Hopkins?

  Het zijn de eerste uur van augustus 1. Wilco en zijn team maken hun weg op de windblazen zuidenest flank van K2.

• 18:40John Hopkins?

  In de arme, licht door de hoofdlampen, klimperen kiezen hun weg langs de schulder. Een sterk opstijging van een miljard lange schijf van schot, gebonden op beide kanten door precipitieve schot. De mannen vangen opzorgvelijk, kerkend rond de kravassen, proddend de schot met hun ijsaxen om de grond te testen. Het gaat lang en wordt nog sneller gemaakt door de groep klimperen in voor de hen.

• 19:07John Hopkins?

  Met rond 30 mensen op de route naar de sommeter, is dit een van de bezigste klimperendagen in K2’s geschiedenis.

• 19:15John Hopkins?

  Toen Wilco en zijn team uiteindelijk de top van de schulder bereiken, is de nacht een ochtend van zon en blazen schijnen.

• 19:24Speaker 03

  Het kostte natuurlijk veel langer dan we verwacht, omdat, je weet, van deze trafficjam. Dus we gingen op, de weer was briljant, het was ongelooflijk, er was ongeveer geen wind, je weet, de zon was輝.

• 19:39John Hopkins?

  Uiteindelijk reist de schulder op naar een stijgende kulwa, gekend als de bottelenek. Een dichtbij verticale gully van schot en ijs, samengesteld tussen twee stakken van zonneerbrokken.

• 19:53John Hopkins?

  Als Wilco en zijn team naast de basis van de bottelenek, groeien hun prograat tot een stop. Wilco glanst op. Wat hij ziet is onzeker. Een moeilijke tailbak van misschien 20 of zo klimperen, allemaal funneld in de knarke kletten aan de basis van de gully, wachten op hun turn. Dit zou niet gebeuren.

• 20:17John Hopkins?

  Vorige nacht, een vooruitgebreide team van klimperen en lokale gerichters ging om bevestigde ropes te steken langs de lengte van de bottelenek, om de volgende teams snel te laten passen. Evidentelijk was dit vooruitgebreide team gedat. Ze hebben het niet gedaan met de ropes, en nu zijn de rest van de klimperen met hen gekoppeld. Niet alleen dat, maar het lijkt alsof bepaalde individuen minder vertrouwd zijn met de techniek nodig om deze obstakel te schaal. Sluit iedereen af.

• 20:47Speaker 03

  In de zogenaamde bottelenek moet je een stijgende ijskoude, eigenlijk met twee ijsaxen klimmen. Maar met alle respect, ik zal de namen niet vertellen, maar er waren klimperen, die echt niet met de twee ijsaxen genoeg snel genoeg door deze moeilijkheid klimmen. Dus het kostte een tijd, en je kunt elkaar niet overkomen, je weet. Dus ze hielden de rest.

• 21:11John Hopkins?

  Als ze probeerden om warm te blijven aan de basis van de bottelenek, lift Wilco zijn oog naar wat zit direct bovenaan.

• 21:19John Hopkins?

  De sarrak, de blauwe, protruitende kant van een hangende glasje, uit de gully. Een tottering, teetering schelf van gespannen ijs, soms 600 meter schot en meer half een miljard breed.

• 21:34John Hopkins?

  Over de decennia, als de glasje inchig voorwaart, enorme deksels van ijs hebben gesleven uit de sarrak en zijn op de bottelenek gegooid, smaakje weg van alles of iemand in hun weg.

• 21:49John Hopkins?

  In recente jaren is de sarrak stil geweest, zonder rapporten van ijsfallen. Maar als Wilco oogt op het nu, glimlend in de ochtendzonne, dit gigantische gefrozede edifice lijkt ongelukkig geplaatst. Looming ominair boven de klimperen bovenaan.

• 22:11John Hopkins?

  Over the course of the morning, some climbers turned back, spooked by the delays. After all, the later it gets, the likelier it is they'll be descending at night, when the dangers multiply tenfold.

• 22:24John Hopkins?

  Even some members of Wilco's own team call it quits. But he holds his nerve.

• 22:30John Hopkins?

  At last, the congestion in the bottleneck clears, allowing the rest of the climbers to pass through. They continue all day, slogging up the final thirteen hundred feet, until eventually...

• 22:43Speaker 03

  Finally, we reached the summit after seventeen hours of climbing.

• 22:48John Hopkins?

  With the sun just beginning to set, Wilco stands on the pinnacle of K2, the mountain that has thwarted him twice before. The view from the summit is spectacular, hundreds of jagged peaks stretching away in all directions. Wilco uses his satellite phone to call his wife at home in the Netherlands to tell her the good news. Then, after snapping some triumphant photos, Wilco and his three remaining teammates, Cass, Gerard and Pemba, turn their attention to the long way down.

• 23:20Speaker 03

  Scaling a mountain is just halfway. That's a big, big difference with trail running or marathons, because then you can give everything till the finish line, but on a mountain, you have to go back as well.

• 23:36John Hopkins?

  With daylight fading, Wilco and the others begin the descent.

• 23:41John Hopkins?

  Within moments, evening darkness has swallowed them. As they trudge across the immense snow field that comprises the final summit push on K2, the members of the team drift apart.

• 23:55John Hopkins?

  Each man retreats into his own world, focused on the lonely task of getting down the mountain in one piece.

• 24:05John Hopkins?

  Several hours later, Wilco reaches the traverse, a horizontal climb along an ice wall that leads to the top of the bottleneck. But when he looks for the fixed ropes installed by the advance team, he can't see them. Strange.

• 24:22John Hopkins?

  He stands there, his headlamp a solitary beam in the blackness squinting into the gaping void below.

• 24:29Speaker 03

  Imagine you're coming back from the summit, convinced that the ropes are there, that it's just a matter of clicking into the ropes, following the lines and get back, you know, in the middle of the night, and you can't find the ropes.

• 24:43John Hopkins?

  Wilco backtracks and veers off to the right. Maybe he's just disoriented. He trudges east across the snow field until he spots a headlamp. Coming closer, he sees that it belongs to a climber from a different team, an Italian named Marco Confortola. He is with Wilco's teammate, Gerard McDonald, but the Irishman is in a bad way, suffering from the effects of the cold.

• 25:09John Hopkins?

  Wilco consults with Marco, who suspects they must be in the wrong place. Even if an avalanche had damaged the ropes, there would still be some trace of them, loose, tattered strands flapping in the wind.

• 25:22John Hopkins?

  They can't just have disappeared.

• 25:23Speaker 03

  Nobody could have imagined that your rope would be gone. Normally, a rope is breaking and then you see some flaps hanging, you fix it and you go on. But in this case, the rope was all the way gone. We were trapped.

• 25:45John Hopkins?

  It's around midnight on August 1, 2008.

• 25:50John Hopkins?

  When subjected to altitudes above 8,000 meters or around 26,000 feet, the human body starts to ravage itself from the inside.

• 26:01John Hopkins?

  At these elevations, the concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere is so low, the body must constantly fight to stay alive.

• 26:10John Hopkins?

  The heart beats faster. Non-essential functions are suppressed. Breathing becomes deeper and more frequent. Deprived of oxygen, the brain struggles to focus. Decision-making can become erratic, and a task as simple as tying a shoelace can begin to feel impossibly complex.

• 26:29John Hopkins?

  Mountaineers refer to this band of elevation as "the death zone", because there is only so long that the body can endure such punishment. Oxygen depletion will eventually lead to loss of consciousness and death. How long this process takes varies from person to person. But the window is generally believed to be about 16 to 24 hours. As soon as a climber steps foot inside the death zone, the clock is ticking.

• 26:59John Hopkins?

  Wilco, Marco and Gerard have now been in the death zone on K2 for 36 hours. They are stranded somewhere above the bottleneck, unable to find the ropes required to climb down. And now they have a decision to make. Do they attempt to descend in the dark without ropes? Or risk spending another night in the death zone?

• 27:22Speaker 03

  What I did, together with Gerard McDonald and Marco Confortola, we said, "Listen, we have to take a rest. Tomorrow, you know, it's a new day." We knew that the weather would hold on, and finally, when the sun is rising, we will find the ropes.

• 27:44John Hopkins?

  Decision made, the three climbers settle down in the deep snow, their backs to the wind. As the night draws in, the temperatures plummet to minus 30, cold enough to freeze the tears in the men's eyes.

• 27:59John Hopkins?

  They huddle close and try to stave off hypothermia by clapping their gloved hands together. If only they had a fire. But the truth is, even if they had the wherewithal to light one, they couldn't. Up here, there isn't enough oxygen in the air to strike a match.

• 28:22John Hopkins?

  This October, on the Noiser Podcast Network, "Real Dictators" returns. We're in the Dominican Republic for the story of Rafael Trujillo. On "Short History Of", we'll uncover the secrets of the Hoover Dam and follow Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein and his monster. On "Real Survival Stories", a modern Viking adventure as a replica Norse vessel embarks on a daring voyage across the North Sea, and a man is struck blind, all alone, at the very top of the world.

• 28:53John Hopkins?

  In "Jane Austen Stories", Emma continues with Dame Julie Andrews. And in "Sherlock Holmes Short Stories", Holmes and Watson unpick an epic mystery of hidden treasure and murder in "The Sign of Four". Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus.

• 29:17John Hopkins?

  A few hours later, the sky starts to brighten.

• 29:21John Hopkins?

  As the three men struggle to their feet, the ice encrusting their climbing suits cracks into shards. They ease their bodies forward, straightening their frozen joints.

• 29:33John Hopkins?

  At this elevation, everything slows: brain function, physical movement. But for these experienced mountaineers, haste is critical.

• 29:44John Hopkins?

  Their survival depends on getting down the mountain as soon as possible, back to an elevation where their bodies can recover. Wilco wades through the deep drifts, over to where the snow field slopes away into a vertical drop. He scours the length of the ridge, but there's still no sign of any ropes.

• 30:03John Hopkins?

  Growing impatient, Wilco lifts his climbing goggles to get a clearer view of the terrain.

• 30:09Speaker 03

  And then I made another mistake. I was raising my glasses a little bit too much to see if there are ropes yet, yes or no. And then I got snow blindness.

• 30:19John Hopkins?

  A burning sensation stabs at Wilco's eyes. He snaps his goggles back down, but the damage has been done. Ultraviolet light is more intense at altitude, and without protection, the sun's glare of the snow will inflame the outer surface of the eye, resulting in severe pain and temporary loss of vision.

• 30:41John Hopkins?

  Wilco turns and looks for the other two, but it's like viewing the world through a pane of frosted glass. His pulse quickens. Snow blindness tends to get worse over time. Before long, he could lose his vision entirely, and up here, that's a death sentence.

• 30:59Speaker 03

  It was to be or not to be. So for me, you know, it was not a rational decision. It was just my gut feeling, you know, that I knew if I don't take action right now, I'm done. Nobody is carrying me down.

• 31:13John Hopkins?

  Wilco calls out to the others, but they barely respond. They're too exhausted, too preoccupied, searching for the fixed lines. Wilco doesn't have time for that now. It is imperative that he gets down the mountain quickly, with or without ropes. He turns and starts gingerly backing down the sloping edge of the glacier, feeling his way with the teeth of his crampons. Soon, he is descending a near-vertical ice cliff. But descending it to what? He can't even say for certain what side of the mountain he's on. The only direction that matters is down.

• 31:55John Hopkins?

  After dropping around 300 feet, Wilko comes across a rope. It's not one he recognizes, maybe it was placed here by another team following a different route. He gratefully clips into it and continues inching down. But he's only gone a few more feet when, glancing to his right, he is met by a horrifying scene. Three climbers lie slumped against the side of the mountain, tangled in their ropes, their faces bashed and bloody. They have obviously suffered a terrible fall.

• 32:27Speaker 03

  When I was going down, I was coming along some trapped climbers, they were hanging in the rope, they were falling the night before. They couldn't save themselves, had some communication because they lost the shoes, they lost their gloves. I gave my spare gloves, but I couldn't help them because I was snowblind.

• 32:47John Hopkins?

  Clearly, something terrible is unfolding on K2, a catastrophic natural disaster. Whatever happened to the fixed ropes, it has left multiple climbers trapped. In the chaos, rash decisions are being made, hasty, improvised attempts to descend down untested routes. But Wilko, barely able to see, is in no condition to stay and assist others. In fact, trying to help in his state could make the situation worse for everyone. So, difficult though it is, he continues to drop down the side of the mountain. Soon, the rope runs out, and once again he must descend untethered, seeking out grooves

• 33:31John Hopkins?

  in the rock with his wet gloves. On he goes, inching lower, his breath rasping in the oxygen-thin air. With fuzzy eyes, he glances down past his trembling crampons. He's able to make out a sheer rock face, plunging away into shadow and swirling snow.

• 33:53Speaker 03

  And then I was trapped, because the mountain is that steep, you can't go any further, you're looking in a black hole. So I was looking up, you know, screaming to my mates, but they didn't hear me anymore. I didn't have the energy to climb up again, my way was ending.

• 34:08John Hopkins?

  Wilko is truly stranded. He rests his forehead against the rock and shuts his eyes.

• 34:16Speaker 03

  I knew that it was not automatically logical that I would survive. So, it could also be my last mountain. But, it's hard to say, but I could embrace it as well. But, deep inside me, of course, I was telling myself, "I'm a father, this can't be the end." I was really angry, because I was really thinking, "How can I be here, isolated, alone? Where are my climbing buddies?"

• 34:48John Hopkins?

  But getting angry or frustrated will only waste his strength. Instead, Wilko decides to expend a few more precious drops of energy on something truly important. He pulls out his satellite phone and dials his wife.

• 35:04Speaker 03

  That was the moment that my wife, for the first time, was having contact with me after the call from the summit that we were on the summit. You can't imagine what it is, you know, to sit at home with a boy of seven months old, knowing and reading on the internet what was going on, because the first casualties were there already. But the interesting thing was that my wife was trying to motivate me, you know, instead of getting angry, you know, "You are a daddy, you have to move on," etc.

• 35:36John Hopkins?

  For Wilko, hearing his wife's voice, even from thousands of miles away, is a source of enormous comfort. He reassures her that he'll call again in 24 hours, and hangs up. He returns the phone to his pocket and tries to formulate a plan. But it's hard to even stay awake, he is so utterly depleted.

• 35:58Speaker 03

  After this telephone conversation, I was losing consciousness. You are completely at the end, you know, your battery is completely empty, so I lost consciousness.

• 36:12John Hopkins?

  Wilko comes to after about half an hour. He inhales deeply, pulling as much frigid air as possible into his lungs, but it's like breathing through a straw. He needs to stay alert and come up with a plan.

• 36:28Speaker 03

  What are my options if I keep sitting here? That's not an option. If I move on, there is a big chance that I will fall, but you know, better falling than staying.

• 36:39John Hopkins?

  Wilko peers around, his damaged eyes straining. To his right, the mountain bends sharply towards what appears to be a gauntlet of granite slabs and broken icy ledges. It looks daunting, but passable. He sets off, edging diagonally across the hair-raising incline. Periodically, he turns and checks if he can see the lights of Camp 4 twinkling below. But a thick fog has descended, further impairing his vision. He stumbles on for hours. Eventually, the light starts to fade, and Wilko has little choice but to stop for the

• 37:22John Hopkins?

  night and improvise some form of shelter on the side of the mountain. Without a tent or sleeping bag, all he has for insulation is his thick down coat and frozen balaclava.

• 37:36Speaker 03

  A really difficult part, you know, full of ice, and you won't look at your watch anymore because you're completely out of your mind. I tried that night to call my wife again, but because of my snow blindness, I couldn't find the right buttons on the telephone, you know, to call the right number, and I was really upset and angry.

• 37:58John Hopkins?

  Wilko plunges an ice axe into the slope, fastens a rope around it, and secures himself in place. Then he hunkers down and surrenders to sleep. When Wilko wakes, the sky remains dark, cloaked in a pall of cloud. Still disoriented as to where exactly he is on the mountain, he continues to descend, zigzagging his way downhill. A weak gray light starts to seep into the cloud cover. Dawn. His eyes begin to improve as the altitude decreases, his brain fog slowly clears. He is making progress.

• 38:41John Hopkins?

  Eventually, the mountain flattens out as he reaches the shoulder, the long snowy ridge leading down to the upper camps. He forges on, hobbling on frost-bitten feet. Dehydration burns his throat, and delirium blurs everything, but he doesn't stop. At some point, Wilko lifts his head and sees, in the sprawling gray emptiness, a headlamp. Moments later, a familiar voice calls out. It's his old friend, Cass.

• 39:17Speaker 03

  When I came close to this camp, you know, there was one guy standing, and it was my best climbing partner, you know, the only one who was still waiting for me, because everybody went down on the mountain, but he was still believing that I must be somewhere, and he had been searching that night also. It was a big relief.

• 39:39John Hopkins?

  But they are still far from safe.

• 39:41Speaker 03

  Still, you are on, what is it, 7,700 meters or something, and nobody's going to help you, because it's still, you know, Russian roulette. It was constantly avalanches, falling blocks, you know, so the best advice was, "Go down, save yourself." So, nobody's going up the mountain.

• 40:01John Hopkins?

  Wilko and Cass locate a spare oxygen bottle, and Wilko gratefully inhales some much-needed O2 into his system. But then another setback.

• 40:12Speaker 03

  Within a short time, this bottle was empty. And then you are, yeah, you're back to basic again. We were completely exhausted, sitting in the snow, you know, we couldn't just move on from Camp 3 to Base Camp, it was surviving a whole day.

• 40:29John Hopkins?

  Having survived two nights in the death zone, pushing his body to the most extreme limits imaginable, Wilco must now push it a little further. The trek down to Base Camp is a grueling slog. But as they go, dodging crevasses and navigating steep ice cliffs, Wilko can only marvel at the resilience of the human body.

• 40:50Speaker 03

  Imagine, minus 30, and your body is able in keeping the core temperature on plus 27 or 28 or 30, whatever, degrees. Well, there is no energy in the system left. We can't design such a technical system, but you know, my body was trying to survive, and that's what we are, we are a human being with human intelligence.

• 41:21Speaker 04

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• 41:42Speaker 05

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• 42:08John Hopkins?

  After descending another full day, Wilco and Cass finally reach base camp. Twelve hours after finding each other, the two men stagger into camp. They're both in terrible shape, ravaged by cold and fatigue, but Wilco is able to look past that. They've made it.

• 42:29Speaker 03

  It was dark already, and of course, I knew in big trouble with my feet, with the hands of my partner who were frozen. But believe me, it doesn't matter, you know? You survived.

• 42:42John Hopkins?

  Down at base camp, they learn further details of what happened up there. It's even worse than Wilco could have imagined. The serac, the giant, overhanging ice sheet above the bottleneck, collapsed. This ripped away their fixed ropes, leaving at least eight climbers stranded high on the mountain with their planned route down destroyed. Some managed to survive the chaos. Cass and Pemba made it down the bottleneck that first night, followed by Marco, and finally, improbably, by Wilco. Others were not so fortunate. Gerard McDonald, Wilco's friend and teammate, is believed to have stayed to try and help other injured climbers.

• 43:25John Hopkins?

  He was tragically killed in the process. After a night in base camp, Wilco is airlifted off K2. He spends one night in a military hospital in the mountain town of Skadu before being flown to Islamabad for further medical treatment.

• 43:46Speaker 03

  I went to the hospital, they were looking to my toes, and they wanted to start surgery. But our own expedition doctor, you know, he warned us, he said, "Just let it go, because your body will try to save a little bit skin, but you have to give it some time. And of course, it's painful, but you have to go through it and finally take the surgery in Holland and not over there with all the risk of infection."

• 44:10John Hopkins?

  After deciding not to undergo surgery here in Pakistan, Wilco and his colleagues leave the hospital and head to a nearby hotel. As they step into the lobby, they're greeted by a scrum of reporters.

• 44:24Speaker 03

  There were all journalists all over the place, because we didn't know, but our expedition reached the headlines all over the world, you know, from Al Jazeera to NBC to BBC. So, you know, suddenly, we were in the middle of a world crisis or something.

• 44:40John Hopkins?

  In the days that follow, more details about the tragedy emerge. In total, of the 28 people who made serious summit attempts on July 31st, 11 died on the mountain. Some fell to their deaths after being cut off by the collapsed serac. Others were killed by the icefall itself or fell early in the day. It is the deadliest single disaster in K2's history and sends shockwaves through the world of mountaineering. As well as the press, worried family members who had been made aware of the crisis as it was unfolding have flown to Pakistan and are now desperate for information about their loved ones.

• 45:20John Hopkins?

  In the hotel, Wilco meets with Gerard's brother and fiance to break the devastating news.

• 45:29Speaker 03

  One of the hardest things to do was to tell the family of our teammate, Jer McDonald, that Jer was not coming with us and that he was still on the mountain. And his brother and his fiance was coming to Pakistan, and we met them, you know, in the hotel. But it's so difficult in telling that one of your team members is not coming back.

• 45:59John Hopkins?

  Wilco flies back to the Netherlands and checks into hospital. There, doctors examined the extent of his frostbite and determined that in order to prevent the spread of infection, they will have to amputate the toes. After the operation, Wilco is visited by a team of specialists who deliver a damning prognosis.

• 46:19Speaker 03

  The specialists in the hospital were telling me, you know, that I couldn't run anymore, that I couldn't climb in the future anymore. And that was for me, of course, I was really thinking, if I can't run anymore and I can't climb anymore, what is my life?

• 46:35John Hopkins?

  For Wilco, a future without climbing is difficult to imagine, and one he is not going to give up on easily. Following the amputation, he commits to a taxing regimen of physical therapy. It's a long road ahead, and he intends to take it one step at a time.

• 46:53Speaker 03

  It took a while before I could go to the toilet in my own, could run or walk, actually, a mile, and finally, you know, step by step, my targets, my goal was clear.

• 47:04John Hopkins?

  It takes many months, but eventually, Wilco defies the experts' prognosis. A year after the tragedy on K2, he returns to climbing mountains. And in the year since, he has undertaken various extreme expeditions and endurance challenges, each seemingly more daring than the last. But even as Wilco continues to write his own story, he holds close the legacy of those whose lives were lost on that fateful day in 2008. On the wall in his home office, there is a photograph of Gerard McDonald, capturing the moment they reached the summit of K2 together.

• 47:42Speaker 03

  You still here on the wall in my office, with a beautiful picture now, looking into the sky with his Irish flags above his head, having the biggest smile on his face, and that's how we should remember him.

• 47:59John Hopkins?

  Reflecting on his own experiences on K2, Wilco is the first to admit how unlikely his survival was.

• 48:07Speaker 03

  If you would have told me this story before, probably I would have said, "Now, this is not possible. You can't survive three days in the death zone." But I'm here.

• 48:17John Hopkins?

  Was Wilco's survival a case of sheer luck, a testament to his unusual resilience, or a combination of both? For his part, he also gives credit to the role of something else, something hard to put into words. When he was struggling to stay awake, stranded in the death zone on K2, Wilco's smartwatch recorded exactly how long he was unconscious. Looking back at the data, it seems this period of unconsciousness coincided with something happening thousands of miles away.

• 48:49Speaker 03

  This graphic shows that I only closed my eyes for half an hour. How is it possible that I opened my eyes after half an hour when your battery is completely empty, it's minus 30, without food, without drinking? And later on, it showed that it was the moment that my boy was crying like hell, and my wife said later, "It seems that he was saying goodbye to you," or something. And I think, I believe really that that was the trigger, you know? It was the trigger that I was waking up again. And I'm not saying there is a God, but if you can believe in the power of something bigger in nature, that people can send you the energy, then there is more possible than

• 49:34Speaker 03

  you think. We are too much focused on what we can see, but I can tell you, magic happens in what we can't see.

• 49:57John Hopkins?

  Next time on Real Survival Stories, we meet Noah Messenger. In 2017, the teenager is working in the lush and luxurious environs of the Maryhill Winery in Washington State. One late sunny afternoon, while happy guests sip the local produce, Noah is finishing up his shift and decides to take a stroll through the vineyards to a picturesque spot overlooking the mighty Columbia River. But then, one single misstep changes everything, a simple twist of fate with devastating consequences.

• 50:30Speaker 06

  Consciously, I knew it was going to be bad. I was like, "Okay, this is definitely breaking bones." I felt my back just like snap first. It was just like intense alarm. I could just feel the, you know, immediate snap.

• 50:45John Hopkins?

  Instantly semi-paralyzed, with no phone, no food, and no water, all his hopes of survival rest on his colleagues coming to look for him. But as the hours slip by with no sign of rescue, it becomes clear that Noah's only option is to save himself, one slow, painful inch at a time. That's next time on Real Survival Stories. Listen right now without ads and without waiting a week by joining Noiser Plus. This October on the Noiser Podcast Network, Real Dictators returns. We're in the Dominican Republic for the story of Rafael Trujillo.

• 51:26John Hopkins?

  On Short History of, we'll uncover the secrets of the Hoover Dam and follow Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein and his monster. On Real Survival Stories, a modern Viking adventure as a replica Norse vessel embarks on a daring voyage across the North Sea, and a man is struck blind all alone at the very top of the world. In Jane Austen stories, Emma continues with Dame Julie Andrews. And in Sherlock Holmes short stories, Holmes and Watson unpick an epic mystery of hidden treasure and murder in The Sign of Four. Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus.