K2

I received a completely unexpected phone call in September 2024, I was in the physical therapist’s waiting room when a man named Agostino Da Polenza (whom, in my historical “ignorance,” I hadn’t yet heard of) invited me to join the Italian-Pakistani women’s expedition that was being organized to climb K2 next summer. This marks the 70th anniversary of the first Italian ascent of the mountain, and the Italian Alpine Club has embraced the project for what is being called a commemorative expedition.

My mind immediately travels back to that distant year of 1954 When word spread throughout the Italian mountaineering community that the best climbers would be selected to conquer the summit of that then-unclimbed mountain, so distant, vast, and challenging, a couple of months later, the best climbers received a letter inviting them to join the expedition.

In 2024, things unfold a little differently, there’s no doubt about it, starting with the fact that K2 is no longer unclimbed, communication takes place by phone rather than by mail, the team isn’t selected based on who’s the best but on many other factors, the mountain isn’t conquered but climbed, and there’s no patriotism driving me to plant a national flag. It’s purely a personal challenge...

But in my imagination, this whole modern context immediately blends with the names of Bonatti, Madi, Compagnoni, Lacedelli, Cassin, Desio... And after some initial hesitation, I ordered my first pair of 8,000-meter boots, drew up a specific training plan, and threw myself into the project with total dedication.

I decide, without a doubt, to tackle the climb without oxygen, a decision that I personally consider crucial to preserving the authentic and athletic spirit of the enterprise.

On June 16, we are a group of people at Malpensa Airport Heading to Pakistan, destination: K2 base camp. I’ve only gotten to know a few people in the group, most notably my teammates Federica and Anna, with whom I’ve done several pre-departure training sessions; a few others I’ve briefly run into on the street; and still others I’ve spoken to on the phone to sort out logistical details...

But There are faces I've never seen before And I don't even know if they're part of our group or not. I've never set out on an expedition with such a large group; I look at those unfamiliar faces and I'm afraid they might deprive me of the intimacy I'm looking for in an experience like this. I envy the ease of those among us who are already exchanging banter, while I still take refuge, if only for a little while, in the solitude of a book or my phone, as long as I can, where the familiarity of well-established relationships at home lies hidden.

These unfamiliar faces will soon, in a completely natural and unconscious way, become my social circle for the next two months.

And here I am, someone who doesn't usually have a lot of words to spare, I'll adapt so well to my new circle of friends that I won't want to leave base camp even when everyone else has already left and the tents are gone. I’ll grow so attached to some of my travel companions that, once I return to Italy, I’ll find it hard to see my social circle as the actual number of people who make it up.

I will adapt so perfectly to the focus on a single goal, to the point where I can no longer balance several of them.

What made my expedition to K2 so wonderful and meaningful was the base camp, that is, the base camp as a representation of what it stands for.

After several days of travel and logistical adjustments, The trek along the Baltoro Glacier begins: seven days of slow walking across Asia's largest glacial basin, where day after day The vastness of the valley and the grandeur of the mountains surrounding us strip me of my fears and my armor, and I simply begin to be myself, right there, in the present, and 100 percent.

Nature and the absence of any connection to the outside world have always had this effect on me, because obviously It is easier to relate to one another when there are no shadows from the past or the future, shadows we cannot grasp except through intimate knowledge. Of course, not everyone was able to embrace only the present moment, but I was, and so I was also able to take in any worries or desires that others might have had, because it was as if there were some space available within me.

On June 29, we reach base camp And that's when the climb up K2, which, at first, was a purely personal challenge for me, immediately turned into a team mission: It was no longer my goal, but rather the goal of an entire group made up of people with different roles, and my role was to physically walk up that slope, I was the mountaineer.

What does an ascent of an 8,000-meter mountain via the standard route actually entail? (8,611 meters, to be exact, in the case of K2)? The climb is very demanding time and patience due to the need for acclimatization, which everyone experiences at their own pace but generally requires at least a month, during which time you gradually gain altitude for a few days and then descend to base camp, where, thanks to the loss of altitude, the body can recover from the exertion of the previous days and adapt to the new physiological conditions it has been subjected to.

Staying at high altitudes is uncomfortable, cold, but above all unpleasant because of the altitude sickness, such as nausea, headaches, loss of appetite, difficulty drinking, diarrhea, and loss of balance, symptoms that inevitably affect you during the acclimatization process.

So you must be absolutely prepared to endure the discomfort and climb very slowly, because the slower you gain altitude, the less bothersome the symptoms of altitude sickness will be.

My month of acclimatization went exactly like that, except that, in addition to all the discomforts of high altitude, On top of that, there was also the bad weather (often found in these mountains). Due to bad weather, the maximum amount The goal I managed to achieve during the acclimatization month was 7,000 meters, where I spent four hours with my three climbing partners, huddled inside a two-person tent that was far too small to accommodate all of us, and made to feel even smaller by the strong wind that was bending its walls. But perhaps it was precisely those difficult conditions that made us even more essential to one another.

There were four Italian women and four Pakistani women, but the climbing teams and friendships became so intertwined during the expedition that this distinction never really existed. And from the moment I left base camp to climb the mountain, it was just me and Ming; me, Ming, and Anna; me, Ming, Majo, and Fede; me, Tommy, and Sellino... and from time to time, different companions, depending on who happened to be matching my pace that day or had chosen the same elevation as I had for the night.

They shared their wishes which high altitude triggers in an extremely pronounced way, the following were shared: efforts While cooking a pot of tortellini in broth, buffeted by the wind, they shared the sleeping pads and sleeping bags with those who were already up in the highlands, they shared their tents, words of encouragement and words of discouragement, lots of music to take our minds off the nausea.

And then we headed back down to base camp, where the simplicity of a pitcher of hot water for washing, the craving for a meal with Pakistani flavors, and our magnificent communal tent, where we could gather to play cards, read a book, discuss attack strategies, and simply relax, allowed us to bond as a team and forget the discomfort we’d experienced higher up at altitude.

K2 is a beautiful mountain; I see it for the first time from Concordia (the last stop on the trek), and from there it always towers over us, imposing and silent. Every now and then it disappears, shrouded in clouds, and every now and then it noisily shakes the snow off its slopes, with a massive avalanche or the collapse of a huge serac.

I've never been afraid to climb it. Perhaps because I've never felt alone. I was afraid, however, of the unexpected reactions that the extreme altitude might cause, And perhaps that’s what stopped me from continuing my ascent on that fateful day when I attempted the summit. It never seemed like an impossible mountain to me, least of all when I finally began to see it and climb it; but I never truly believed I’d be able to reach its 8,611-meter summit without oxygen, as I had unquestionably decided to tackle it.

And perhaps it was also this lack of self-confidence that kept me from continuing on that fateful day when I tried to reach the summit.

In any case, the good weather seemed like it would never come, but then all the expeditions at base camp agreed on the date of the June 28, during a window of good weather, to attempt the summit, and so, even though the window was brief, everything began to revolve around that date.

It had been a restless few days at base camp because everyone was getting ready, even as they voiced their doubts about how little acclimatization they’d done and how short the window of good weather was. Unfortunately, my teammates and I had come down from the last rotation only two days earlier, and our bodies certainly hadn’t had enough time to fully recover. But you can’t control the weather, that was the only date available, so we encouraged each other to set out again.

Our strategy was to leave a little later so that we would have a few more hours at base camp. However, if we had done that, we would have had to rest at Camp 1 and then at Camp 2 for only a few hours, because otherwise we would have fallen behind schedule for June 28. The short breaks at the higher camps were even shorter than expected, due to the tents being occupied by other people and the difficulty of melting snow to hydrate ourselves and eat. As a result, we ended up climbing too many consecutive meters of elevation gain without allowing ourselves the rest we needed.

The result was that I suffered from severe stomach pain practically the entire way up until it became almost unbearable at an altitude above 7,000 and it slowed my progress so much that I reached Camp 3 (at an elevation of 7,300 meters) completely exhausted and late in the afternoon. Once again, resting at that altitude wasn’t enough; stomach pain prevented me from both drinking and eating, and the next day, my body didn’t have the strength to continue the climb beyond a few more meters of trying. So I turned back, said goodbye to Majo, who was just a few meters ahead of me, his sad gaze weighing heavily on my heart, and returned to the tent, where Federica and I set out on the long, slow descent back to base camp.

At first, the relief of feeling better as we descended brought back our laughter and joking, as usual.

Little by little, however, the disappointment of not having made it and the thought of our companions still up there on the mountain began to take hold And the days that followed were filled with emotion, tension, doubts, and finally pure happiness when we were all finally able to embrace each other again.

The First Real Hug I received it from none other than Agostino Da Polenza, whom I didn’t even know until a few months ago, but who has since become so “close” that it led him to give me a truly sincere and heartfelt hug when he saw me return from the mountains safe and sound, to open his heart to me, and to dispel any possible thought that I might have disappointed him or let myself down.

The hugs that followed were from those new friends I met at base camp, who reached higher altitudes than I did, some even making it to the summit, and who, through those hugs, shared a little of their climb with me; in a way, they took me up there with them.

And the last ones were Majo and Fede’s, when I was finally able to see them come down safe and sound, thus closing a circle that would otherwise have turned out to be a black hole.

I didn't reach the summit of K2, but the the peak of a tent at base camp and the special bonds it symbolizes, which are certainly much higher than 8,611 meters.

As Roger Baxter Jones famously said: “Come back safe, come back as friends, reach the summit, in that exact order”.