Hardwear Sessions

Ueli wants to write Horia a text message, when his handy rings again. Horia. "Hey, everything ok up there?" Ueli asks.

"Yes, quite ok."

"Really?"

"Yes, a couple of technical problems."

In the background Ueli hears Inaki coughing heavily. "How is Inaki?"

"Not so good."

"What's wrong with him?"

"Altitude problems."

"And Alexey?"

"He went for the summit"

"Are you ok?"

Horia doesn't answer.

"Horia! Are you ok?"

Then: "I think we need help."

Ueli and Simon look at each other. The cake has to wait. The guys up there need help.

"Horia - we come!"

Ueli cables to the base camp of the Spanish-Rumanian-Russian team, two kilometres further east. Excitement rules over there. The distress call has reached them. Ueli discusses the situation with base camp. Who has medicine? The Spaniards have Dexamethasone, a cortisone compound against high altitude pulmonary edema. Two Sherpas are on their way to the Swiss team's camp, bringing with them vials of Dexamethasone. Ueli and Simon are preparing the equipment - and they have a problem: their high alpine equipment is up in the advance basecamp at the foot of the South Face, ready for their upcoming climb.

Ueli: "We had to be satisfied with our light shoes, Gore-Tex trousers, mountain jackets and finger-gloves. Equipment for a 4000 climb in summer - but not for the death zone."

Steck calls Oswald Oelz, the specialist for high altitude medicine in Switzerland. Oelz gives him advice about the administration of Dexamethasone. After one hour, the Sherpas arrive with the vials. Ueli and Simon switch on their headlamps and walk into the night. It's 9 pm.

Seven hours later they cross into the other team's route. It's 4 am in the morning, altitude 5600m. They allow themselves a rest. At 6 am they move on. It's Tuesday. It's noon, when Ueli and Simon reach camp 2 (6200 m).

"It was warm and the snow was soft," Ueli says. "The 45 degree slope over the glacier up to camp 3 looked dangerous for avalanches." They decide not to move on. "The Spanish people at the BC disliked this", says Ueli. "Sure, they wanted us up there as fast as possible. But we had to think also about our own security."

Steck and Anthamatten spend the night there. On Wednesday morning, 4 am, they move on.

"We were freezing terribly in our summer-equipment," says Steck. Around noon they reach camp 3 at 6800m. The snow enroute was partially breast high. Ueli and Simon are weary. They do not have direct contact with Inaki and Horia in need. The ridge makes this impossible. From the BC they get to know that Russian Alexey was back from summit and now at Camp 4, with Inaki and Horia.

"We cabled them, told them that he had to descend," Ueli says. "We didn't want to have a third sick person up there." The Russian obeys reluctantly. He is tired - but he moves over the 3 kilometer long ridge and fixed ropes down to Camp 3. At 3 pm he reaches Ueli and Simon.

"The tent at the camp was small, we could not let him stay with us overnight," Ueli says. They made it clear to Alexey that it was better if he went further down. And then Ueli had an idea: "He had shoe size 45, like me, and thick mitten!"

Ueli and Alexey exchange their equipment. "At last I had suitable equipment." BC informs them that two more alpinists are on their way up to help. Russian Denis Urubko and Canadian Don Bowie. They will bring oxygen bottles and Dexamethasone with them.

In the night of Thursday Simon gets sick. "I had to throw up, I had first signs of high altitude sickness", Simon says. They decide that Simon should stay at Camp 3. BC informs that Horia and in particular Inaki were getting worse.

"I cabled that Horia should descend immediately, he should leave Inaki alone," said Ueli. Both BC and Horia refuse. Simon advises Ueli to take the GPS with him, but he had to instruct him first on how to use the device.

Ueli: "I have never used it before. The long ridge is extremely dangerous when the sight is bad."

At 5 am Ueli moves on. Alone.

After eight hard hours he is up on the ridge - and he tries again to get Horia to walk towards him. There is too much snow - he should make some tracks. Horia agrees - and starts to move.

"This saved his life," Ueli is convinced. After 1 and a half hours they meet each other on the ridge. "Horia could hardly walk, fell constantly, asked for water."

"I gave him my stove, so that he would be able to melt snow, but Horia was completely exhausted." Ueli helps him with an energy bar, a Dexamethasone tablet and a caffeine tablet.

"An energy bomb, like 14 espressos," describes Ueli. "Horia explained to me desperately, that it would be impossible for him to go back up to 7400m, and this was exactly what I hoped."

It's 3 pm. The Romanian starts his descent.

After eleven hours of ascent, at 4 pm of Thursday, May 22, Ueli Steck reaches Camp 4. It is snowing.

"Inaki! It's me!" Ueli calls.

From the tent in the snow-crevasse Inaki moans.

"Ah, Ueli from the Swiss team!"

"Yes, and Denis and Don are on their way up here too, arriving with oxygen..."

Then Ueli opens the tent - and backs off.

"Inaki was lying in his sleeping bag, wearing his down suit. Everywhere was snow, vomit and urine. It smelled terrible." Ueli gives him a Dexmethsone injection, intra-muscular, directly in his thigh, as Oswald Oelz had told him on the phone. Inaki could hardly move, could not sit upright by himself, and can barely squeeze out a sentence, "Thank you, Ueli, thank you for coming."

Ueli melts snow, gives him water. But Inaki can't keep anything down, keeps throwing up. It's getting close to night.

"It cost me quite an effort to sleep in this tent", Ueli admits. There is not much space left, and Inaki kept throwing up all the time. "I held my gloves in front of my face to protect myself," says Ueli.

On Friday morning, Inaki feels better. "He asks for coffee. And I thought 'Great, he is back to the important things of life.'" But there is no coffee, only water. BC cables that Denis and Don reached Camp 3, where Horia and Simon were staying. Ueli is hopeful. But then Inaki's breath goes faster, he roll his eyes.

Ueli calls Oswald Oelz in Switzerland. Oelz suggests: "Inject him everything you have!"

Ueli does it.

But Inaki's pulse is getting irregularly, and soon drops away completely. Ueli revives, pumps, revives. Without success.

Inaki opens his eyes once again - and dies at 12.10.

Ueli lays exhausted next to him, and finally cables depressed to BC: "It's over..."

"At the camp a wave of mourning breaks out," says Simon, who has in the meantime descended to BC together with Horia. "Some cried, fell into each others' arms. I understood this, yes. But after a while I said: 'Hey, people! My buddy is up there. It's not over yet!'"

Simon checked the weather with Meteotest in Bern - and suggests to Ueli that he should wait one more night before descending. Ueli composes himself, pulls the dead body out of the tent.

"I laid him down about 10 meters away from me in a crevasse. After two minutes he was covered with snow - like a shroud." Now he is alone.

"I didn't have anything to eat, I had bad equipment - and down at the BC everything was falling apart."

Steck goes to sleep in the half-empty tent. The temperatures fall to minus 25 degrees, and it snows.

And then, sometime in the middle of the night it happens: Ueli hears something like a moaning.

"Like the night before, when Inaki was lying next to me."

It shot through him like a blitz: "Inaki is alive!"

Ueli rushes out the tent, runs in panic to the grave, digs through the snow until he saw Inaki's face. But there is no sign of life, no pulse.

Inaki is ice cold and dead. It was only imagination.

Ueli gets back into the tent.

"During this night I nearly starved."

Saturday morning, 4 am. Ueli melts water, drinks, one liter to get rid himself of his hunger pangs, takes one caffeine tablet, and cables Simon at BC - and then at 4.45 am he descends.

"It snowed a lot during the night, bad sight, only a couple of meters."

The tracks had disappeared. He goes slowly, step by step, he just functions. The GPS is always in his right hand.

When he went up he had set a loading point every 50 meters. Ueli locates them, one after the other. 2 1/2 hours he traverses the 3 kilometer long ridge.

Simon: "At this point the wheat separates from the chaff. Some would not have made it."

Ueli is fighting. Denis and Don came towards him from Camp 3. Suddenly he hears them cabling to the BC: "We can see him!"

Moments later the two groups of men shake hands. Denis asks: "What happened?"

Ueli: "I tried..."

Denis nods, and puts his arm around him.

"Come, we descend. Down, down to BC."

At 8 am the men are at Camp 3. Ueli receives 2 power gels, drinks. Then they move on. At Camp 2 more helpers are waiting. Ueli eats lasagne. His animal spirits come back slowly. At 4 pm he is at BC. The reception is cold. Ueli comes without Inaki.

"I didn't want to explain, discuss. Just take a shower and sleep."

Wednesday night Simon and Ueli landed, from Kathmandu via Doha, in Zurich. No, his attitude towards alpinism was not changed by this experience.

"I was always aware of the danger, we were exposed. Self-overestimation is the borderline between performance-oriented alpinism and carelessness."

He hasn't speak with Inaki's parents yet. "For this I first need to find the words. And to understand, myself, what happened."

Friday night Ueli Steck was honoured in Grindelwald, Switzerland, in his home Canton of Bern, with the Eiger Award 08, the Oscar of Alpinism. The award was established "for high performances in alpinism, which demonstrate to a broad public the value and fascination of the mountains."

No, they are not heroes, denies Ueli. "We have simply helped two comrades. A matter of course."

Great stories begin with small coincidences - and end with great modesty, and with great actions, actions much greater than the individuals who commit them.