K2 in the black summer

Wanda Rutkiewicz · 1986 CE · Earth

K2 in the black summer — Wanda Rutkiewicz · 1986 CE · Earth — Recorded expedition route · schematic map

Climb K2 by the Abruzzi Spur in lightweight style, without oxygen, with a party of four and no high-altitude porters.

Historical context

In 1986 nine expeditions from seven countries shared the base camp on the Godwin-Austen glacier, an unheard-of crowd for K2, and the Abruzzi Spur had fixed ropes to 8,000 metres. Wanda Rutkiewicz had been trying to become the first woman on the mountain since 1982; the Barrards climbed as a couple and had put Liliane on Nanga Parbat in 1984. They went for the summit in the first good weather of the season, without oxygen, in a party of four, two days ahead of everyone else, and the summer that followed became known as the black summer of K2.

The voyage, step by step

  1. Skardu

    May 1986

    In May 1986 the Barrards' French expedition, four climbers and no high-altitude porters, passes through Skardu on its way to the Baltoro along with eight other expeditions bound for K2.

  2. Concordia

    1986 CE

    At Concordia, where the Baltoro and Godwin-Austen glaciers meet, K2 appears for the first time, a pyramid 3,600 metres above the ice.

  3. Base camp at the end of May

    May 1986

    The French party reaches base camp on the Godwin-Austen glacier at the end of May and, on 21 June, watches an avalanche on the south-south-west ridge kill the Americans John Smolich and Alan Pennington.

  4. The bivouac at 8,300 metres

    22 June 1986

    Leaving base camp on 18 June, the four climb the spur in four days and on 22 June bivouac in a two-man tent without sleeping bags at 8,300 metres, just below the Bottleneck.

  5. The first woman on K2

    23 June 1986

    At 10:15 on 23 June 1986 Wanda Rutkiewicz, going ahead of the others, reaches the summit of K2, 8,611 metres, without oxygen; the Barrards arrive half an hour later and Parmentier after them.

  6. The Barrards lost

    24 June 1986

    On the morning of 24 June Parmentier goes down first to melt water at Camp III, Rutkiewicz follows, and Liliane and Maurice Barrard, descending last in rising wind and cloud, are never seen alive again.

Outcome

Wanda Rutkiewicz on the summit at 10:15 on 23 June 1986, the first woman on K2; Liliane and Maurice Barrard lost on the descent the next day, the third and fourth of thirteen deaths on the mountain that summer.

Wanda Rutkiewicz

The Polish engineer who was the first woman on K2, on 23 June 1986, at the start of the summer that killed thirteen climbers on the mountain, and who vanished on Kangchenjunga six years later chasing all fourteen 8,000-metre peaks.

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Sources

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