In 2004, after summiting Lhotse (during which Chris suffered frost damage to his toes and fingers), he headed from Nepal to Pakistan to attempt Nanga Parbat. 

As the ninth highest peak in the world, Nanga Parbat, 8125m/ 26,658 ft., is considered one of the most dangerous and best-guarded summits in the world. Chris attempted the Kinshoffer Route that ascends the Diamir Face. Chris worked with a German team to establish the route and pushed to the summit in mid June.  Prior to 2004, approximately 200 people had summited Nanga Parbat. 

The Trail to Nanga Parbat Base Camp

Sunday June 6, 2004, 1:46 am EST

Nanga Parbat base camp via satellite phone:

I have had a magical trip into the Nanga Parbat base camp. It was absolutely spectacular. I can't believe how beautiful it is here. To get to base camp you start by walking thorough the Indus river valley, which has the best selection of bouldering in the world. Next, you travel up to what seems like a high altitude desert. Still higher up the trail, you eventually end up in a beautiful pine and birch forest. These give way to amazing grasslands sparsely populated by a few yak herders. Here, the yak herders have built some huts to better take advantage of these amazing grasslands. Base camp is located here, at 4200 meters (about 13,800 feet).

I got to base camp yesterday (June 5th). This morning, I got up at 6 am and climbed to camp 1, which is only one and a half hours away. There, I dropped a load and came back for breakfast (couldn't miss the cooking). Tomorrow, I will return to camp 1 and will then move up to camp 2 (6000 meters) the following day.

All is very well here. Nanga Parbat is absolutely amazing. I am very psyched and feeling really strong. So, hopefully, if all things go well, I will be able to knock this one off with out too much difficulty.

Chris Warner.

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Where has he been hiding?

June 9, 2004 Nanga Parbat Base Camp

Karachi was on fire; rioting followed the assassination of a pro-Taliban cleric. BBC was showing footage of cops firing into crowds and tear gas canisters being picked up by masked Pakistanis and tossed back at the cops, while all around them, cars and buildings were burning. But just before boarding the plane from Kathmandu, Maoist terrorists blew up a local bus, wounding 22 people. I didn't look forward to my one night layover in Karachi, but I wanted to get out of Kathmandu as soon as possible, since a three-day strike was about to start.

I arrived in Karachi as the sun was setting, with the temperature dropping from a high of 105 degrees. Pakistan International Airlines had a deal with the closest hotel, and not wanting to venture into the heart of the city, I checked in there. Despite being covered in sweat, I chose to not disturb the roaches that were living in the shower. While bombs exploded nearby, I took a fitful nap and headed back to the airport at 3 a.m. to catch the first flight to Islamabad.

Islamabad seems a continent away from Karachi: one city calm, the other seething. I was met at the airport by the agency that is handling all of my logistics. They whisked me off to the hotel, where climbers from the world over were gathering for expeditions to K2 and Broad Peak. It was great to see old friends, and we quickly gathered around the pool, between meetings with liaison officers or trips to the "office" to check gear that had been shipped from home.

The phone rang at 11:30 p.m. telling me that I was shipping out in the morning, with a Pakistani guide and two drivers, for Chillas (a region in Pakistan with a colorful history as a warrior tribal area). It was a 10 hour drive on the Karakoram Highway. This highway is famous as the link between Pakistan and western China, crossing mountain ranges and traveling through canyon-like river valleys. But to those that have traveled it, it is famous as a white-knuckled journey for passengers, as drivers engage in game after game of chicken with giant trucks, on a road often barely a lane wide and without a single guard rail. We actually didn't get started until after lunch and so were benighted deep within the Indus River valley. We were in the middle of a deserted stretch of road when the full moon rose. In that light, the deeply carved Indus River valley, passing through 15,000-20,000 foot peaks, was otherworldly. The river was raging beside the road, tossing its waves ten to twenty feet in the air. When we stopped the van, we could hear car sized boulders tumbling inside the river, the process of erosion never ending.

We arrived in Chillas at 2 a.m. The next morning I was introduced to Abdul Manam, a Chillas tribesman who is managing the logistics of the three expeditions on the Diamar face of Nanga Parbat. He stared at me for a minute and a tear rolled down his cheek. We were both on K2 in 2002. His good friend, Sher Rahman, was killed on that expedition, and I was one of the 20+ western climbers that helped to carry his body from Base Camp to Concordia (a distance of at least 8 miles). Abdul Manam grabbed my hand and said, "you are our friend, our brother. We are indebted to you." I was humbled, feeling that I had just done my duty.

Abdul Manam and I loaded my gear onto a jeep, which took us down the road to a small villages, where an even older jeep waited for us. We transferred the gear, and 4 porters jumped aboard. We wound our way up a narrow dirt road, four wheeling around hairpin turns. At a small village, we left the jeep behind and began the trek to base camp. Almost immediately, we passed Sher Rahman's grave. This is the valley he lived in, and his extended family had representatives in every village that we were to pass through.

Word spread about my role in the carrying of Sher Rahman's body. In this region of Pakistan, women remain hidden. It was the men that came to meet me, tears streaming down their cheeks. Offers to sit for tea and freshly made corn chapattis were constantly made and cautiously turned down. These people are extremely poor and often live in Medieval-like villages. On the second night, I was invited into the home of one family for dinner (the women shifted to a neighbor's). The space was tiny. The building had been built by digging into the hillside, with walls barely 6 feet tall, the roof made of massive beams, causing the clearance to be about 5 feet. There was no chimney, and the fire burned in the middle of the floor, filling the space with smoke, to which my hosts added by chain smoking cigarettes. We sat and ate chapattis and drank black tea. They served me a watery goat milk yogurt, which was tough to stomach.

That night I spread my sleeping bag on the roof of the house. Being built into the hillside and covered with dirt, the rooftop was simply a part of the farm. Not surprisingly, I was visited by farm animals all night, and was woken at 4 a.m. by a baby goat that tried to eat my sleeping bag. I shooed away a rather loud rooster and decided it was time to finish my trek to base camp.

The trek in was powerful, not just because of the kindness of the Chillas people, but also because of the beauty of the quickly changing landscape. In the beginning we climbed steeply throughout a V shaped canyon with desert plants all around us. Later the valley, here carved by glaciers into a broad U shape, turned green, first with twisted Junipers, then towering spruces and, finally, giant birch trees. Small flowers carpeted the meadows, and high above us rose Nanga Parbat.

Nanga Parbat, the largest massif in the world and the north-western edge of the mighty Himalayan mountain range, obviously dominated the views, with its countless arms stretching as jagged ridgelines in every direction. It is an awe inspiring place, and base camp is only too fitting. Here in a meadow are about 30 tents; all inhabited by Germans and Austrians with their Hunza and Chillas staff. Of course, Nanga Parbat is a German mountain, after 31 people--most on pre-WW2 German expeditions--had died trying to climb this mountain. It was the German Hermann Buhl who finally summited in 1953. His bid lasted for 41 hours and cost him two toes, having bivouacked just below the summit on a crumbing ledge no bigger than his feet, with his right hand wrapped around a bump in the cliff face and his left clutching his ski poles (he left his axe on the summit), and one crampon, the strap lost, in his jacket pocket.

I am on a German permit, sharing their base camp, but climbing independently. I have no high altitude porters, nor am I using oxygen. Should be hard work.

I arrived in base camp on June 5th, and on the morning of June 6th, I lugged about 20 pounds to Camp 1. It felt so good to be humping a pack across the glacier and then up the initial slopes of Nanga Parbat, the ninth highest peak in the world. Camp 1 is close, just about 1 1/2 hours away. I left BC at 6:30 a.m. and was back just after 9, enjoying the firm snow and the solitude.

There are ropes already fixed above Camp 2 but not quite to Camp 3. The hardest section of the route is now secure. On June 8th, I left BC at 5:45 a.m. and headed for Camp 2 at 6100 m./20,000 ft. The route above Camp 1 follows a steep snow gully, at points 100 feet across and about 3300 feet tall. I was alone in the gulley, kicking steps and pulling the ropes from the snow. At about 12:30, two Austrians and a Swiss climber came rappelling down from Camp 2. Minutes later, it started to snow and the wind picked up. About 800 feet short of Camp 2, I loaded my gear into a duffel and clipped it to the fixed ropes and began my descent. The last place I wanted to be in a storm was in that gulley. It was obvious that it avalanches with every snow storm. Within 2 hours I was back in BC.

Now I am resting up: tomorrow I will again try to carry from BC to Camp 2, leaving just after 4 p.m. so I can get to Camp 2 and back down the gulley before the afternoon snow storms start.

Once I get all my gear to Camp 2, I hope to move up there, and if the weather allows, to stay there until I can make a summit bid. Let's hope that the summit bid can begin in a week.

Chris Warner

Earth Treks Inc. 

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Climb to C2

Nanga Parbat Base Camp

June 11, 2004

Yesterday morning I left BC at 5 a.m., carrying a light load, through the freshly fallen snow to C1. Here, there was 4 inches on the ground and rumor had it that 8 inches had fallen at C2. I transferred about 15 pounds of gear into my pack and following in the foot prints of some of the Amical climbers I headed up the 3300 ft gulley that leads to the Kinshoffer Wall and C2. I was feeling quite strong, passing 4 of the climbers despite their having a 2 hour head start and my stopping to load my pack with the gear I had stashed high in the gulley. Once properly loaded I was carrying over 45 pounds.

Well that load felt fine until I was on the Kinshoffer Wall, a cliff band rising about 200 feet in a series of vertical rock steps and lesser angled snow slopes. Over the years, the wall has been laced with ropes and cable ladders. In 1962 a team actually rigged a winch, whose cable and a few re-directional tripods can still be seen. Needless to say, my pack kept me off balance on the vertical walls, forcing me to use my arms to pull myself into the rock and onto my cramponed feet.

I flopped over the top of the wall and into C2 (which straddles a narrow ridge) 8 hours after starting. I quickly transferred my load from my pack into a duffel bag. Not wanting to waste a minute, I began the series of rappels down the Kinshoffer and, wrapping my hand around the ropes in the gulley, dropped back to C1 in 2 hours. 12 hours after starting I was back in BC.

In BC we are trying to decipher the differing weather forecasts. There is a possibility of a high pressure system sweeping over Nanga Parbat from the 16th. The temps are cold but warming on the 17th. While the ropes are not quite fixed to C3, it might be possible to have the mountain ready for that weather window.

I figure that the attached photos can do a better job of describing the climb to C2 than words can. Enjoy.

Chris Warner

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"Aaarrrggghhh!"

Nanga Parbat Base Camp

June 15, 2004

Sometimes I get it all wrong. Last night, perched in a tent at Camp 2, I watched the sky fill with thin cirrus clouds, hinting at a change in the weather. At 4:00 a.m. the wind started to shake the tent. I stuck my head into the frigid air and sure enough there was a change, with the valley below filling with dark clouds and wisps of fog racing past the thin ridge line that the tents clung, precariously, to.

I felt a nagging in my soul, should I ignore the tell tale signs for a few more hours, waiting for things to either get obviously worse before chickening out. I had told everyone that I was headed to Camp 3 today, to stay up until I summited (although I always smiled and winked at the last part). Now I was considering retreat just because I found a few dark clouds and gusts of wind to be threatening. While waiting for a sign, I packed away all my gear and strapped on my crampons. Crawling from the tent and looking to the north, I saw the sign that pointed my direction. It was that old sailor's rhyme: red sky at night, sailor's delight. Red sky at morn, sailor's take warn. The sky to the north was a blood thirsty red. I clipped into the ropes and began my 5000 foot descent with a rappel from the tent's door.

The wind carried a light snow fall and the clouds crashing into the mountain made the 3000 foot gulley a navigational mess. Luckily all I had to do was lower myself on the ropes, either by wrapping my uphill hand around the rope, letting my gloves provide the friction, or where steeper, actually rappelling the icy lines.

Almost to the ends of the ropes, I see a crowd of climbers heading up. What can they be thinking? It is the Amical group, a commercial expedition whose Base Camp and permit I am sharing. It is great to see my friends, but in the pit of my stomach I now know that I made the wrong decision.

"Last night we called our meteorologist in Innsbruck and he says that Friday is the best summit day."

Aaarrrggghhh! I am headed in the wrong direction, being pulled not just by gravity but by all the images I conjured up of delicacies and clean clothes, a shower and a half read book. I trudge downward, reaching BC in a blazing time of just under 3 hours. I am in time for breakfast. I huddle under a bucket filled with warm water. I change my clothes and have just finished reading the book. Tomorrow, at 4 a.m., I leave for C2.

What a horrible commute I have in front of me. On Wednesday I will climb 5000 ft. back to C2. On Thursday I will carry the rest of my gear to C3 (having carried the first load there yesterday). Then on Thursday night, all things being OK, I will head for the summit, catching the Amical gang at their Camp 4. Friday will either be a big day, or spent reading a trashy crime novel in a tent somewhere above 22,000 ft.

So after checking out the picture of C2, would you risk spending a few days there, trapped in a storm? Am I the only chicken in this group?

Chris Warner

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Update from Camp 3

Thursday, June 17, 2004

4:16 am EST Nanga Parbat Camp 3 via satellite phone.

It is the 17th of June and I just climbed to Camp 3. Tonight, at 11:00, I leave to climb to Camp 4 - about 3 hours away. Once there, I am going to meet the German Amical group that I have been hanging out with at base camp. Together, we will try to break trail to the summit. Camp 3 is at 6525 meters, leaving me with a 1600 ft elevation gain tomorrow. During tomorrows climb, we will cross the Bazhin Gap, a huge plateau that collects an amazing amount of snow. Hopefully, we will be able to pull it off - it will take all our man power to make it happen. If we are lucky, it should be about 11 or 12 in the morning when we summit. I will try and call again from there.

Chris Warner.

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Numb Fingers and Frost Damage

June 19, 2004

Nanga Parbat Dispatch

This is going to have to be an abbreviated version of a great story that begins in strength and ends with numb fingers and frost damage to numerous toes. Henry Todd was right, when after I suffered peripheral nerve damage on Lhotse: "Chris, why don't you smarten up and head home?"

Well after Lhotse I was able to give the toes and fingers nearly 3 weeks before exposing them to sub-zero temps. I knew the risk was still there, especially after meeting Peter Guggemos (A German 8000 meter peak climber) who told me that "Ja, I get that and it takes me nearly 6 months to recover."

So I pretty much knew I had one chance at Nanga Parbat (temps as low as 20F cause numbness and the worse case of screaming barflies as they re-warm). I raced up and down the peak, hardly ever taking a rest day, in hopes that I could tag onto the first good summit bid. The 18th was forecast a great day, and since I wasn't in the ideal place C4, I had to make a stab from C3. I left there at 11 p.m. hoping to meet up with the Amical group camped at C4. Their guide thought it would take me about 3 hours, but that was before it snowed from late afternoon until departure time. Their tracks were completely covered over. At times it took over 30 minutes to figure out which way to go, as there were many poor possibilities for routes among the steep rocks and across unprotected snow covered traverses.

If I had been alone I would have turned back. It was obvious that breaking trail to C4 was too hard for one person. But there were two Austrian Climbers following me and I eventually handed over the lead to one of them. He climbed ahead, breaking trail, for about 30 minutes. His friend was far behind. Now I don't mean to sound critical. They were speaking the truth when they said they had enough energy to follow but not enough to make the trail. After 5 hours of breaking trail, to knee deep, and slopes up to 55 degrees, I finally spotted the headlamps of the Amical team headed to the summit.

It was now dawn, I was feeling re-assured. Maybe the summit, a mere 1000 meters (3300 ft) above was climbable now that others were breaking the trail. One of the Austrians dropped out at this point.

I continued to stamp out fresh footprints as those formed by the Amical group two hours ago were drifted over by the wind. Up until about 10 a.m. I could feel myself gaining on the Amical group. But after that the lactic acid in my legs kept stopping me after 20 or so steps (I laugh when I read about mountaineers being barely able to take one step for every ten breaths: I haven't the patience to be a mountaineer at that speed). I kept pushing on. My watch had long since frozen so I was totally at a loss for the time. The Amical group slipped away from me. My toes had long since stopped all feeling and my fingers fought over who could be the coldest and thus receive all the attention. At about 12:30 the first of the Amical group came down from the summit.

Sadly they told me that I was at least two hours from the top and another hour back to this point. Dejavu. On Everest in 2001 I gave that exact timetable to a group of friends and instead of their taking two hours up, it was three, by which time they ran out of Oxygen. Their lives were saved by multiple groups banding together and a mountains worth of luck. Well, the terrain between me and safety was treacherous at best, cumulous clouds were building in the valley bringing our daily dose of snow showers, and I hadn't felt my toes in hours.

With the sunlight dancing on the summit, a mere two hours above me, the choice seemed unfair yet undeniable. I asked around only to find out that I was above 8000 meters. Then I headed back to the camps below.

I looked at my toes for the first time at about 7 a.m. this morning. The nerve damage to my feet is uncomfortable. It is the discoloration of some of the toes, the bloodied toe nails and the frost bite blisters that are forming on my big right toe, that give me pause. These are not the feet that are meant to be crammed in rock shoes, but nor are they the toes that could withstand any more cold abuse without the loss of a digit or two. (Did I ever tell you the story of my friend rushing to answer the phone after severely frostbiting his feet on Everest? Well, as he was racing down the staircase he thought he heard an odd sound. So after finishing up the phone call, he pulls off his sock and a toe rolls out. Nothing about auto-amputation of one's own limbs is cute.)

It is a good thing, this day dreaming. And the value of the day dream increases with the effort, expense and the pain that we endure as we try against the greatest odds to make that dream come true. I set off to climb 4 8000 meter peaks and obviously wasn't successful. But in terms of adding great value to a dream and my life, well....I deserve all the smiling my cheeks can muster.

Chris Warner

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