Optimism wasn’t high for climbers Steve House and Vince Anderson.
Three weeks before their bold plan to forge a new route on the Rupal Face of Pakistan’s deadly Nanga Parbat, an international solo climber was rescued by a helicopter after spending six cold nights trapped on what is considered the largest, steepest wall of rock in the world.
A month earlier in July, a climber found the skeletal remains of Gunther Messner, who with brother Reinhold was the first to climb the towering face of the infamously lethal peak before disappearing in 1970.
Rupal forced House to turn back in 2004. In fact, Rupal has thwarted all but one attempt since the Messner brothers’ notorious ascent.
“Our chances weren’t exceedingly high,” says Anderson, a 35-year-old Colorado native and ice-climbing owner of Skyward Mountaineering guide shop in Ridgway. “We had every intention of trying to summit, but I think both of us were not too confident that was going to happen.
“I wouldn’t say we were pessimistic, but it seemed like we needed an awful lot of luck to do it. Or fortitude.”
House and Anderson had a lot of both when they left their Himalayan base camp Sept. 1. They were armed with a bare minimum of equipment: a week’s worth of food, no oxygen, no porters, no fixed ropes. The pair had a long-fostered yet brazen dream to stay “pure alpine” in their climb of a nearly 14,000-foot vertical rock face to the 26,657-foot summit of the world’s ninth- highest peak, which has claimed the lives of 61 climbers in the past 52 years, earning a title as the “Killer Mountain.”
They slept little and climbed through snow, ice and rock.
On the fourth day, House was climbing over a cornice when it collapsed beneath him. His feet ripped from the snow. Only one of his ice tools remained buried in ice. Large chunks of snow pounded Anderson below as his partner dangled by one hand.
“I had to put my head down and bear the brunt of it,” Anderson says. “I hurt for a week. That was a close call.”
Six days later, including a 24-hour summit-day push Sept. 6, House and Anderson reached the summit of Nanga Parbat. They had pioneered a new route. They were mountaineering heroes. They forever will be elevated in American mountaineering history.
The pair spent two days descending the peak, an often terrifying task rife with altitude-addled mistakes and dangerous rappels. Exhaustion made the descent even more harrowing.
Anderson credits their success to teamwork and several months of physical and mental preparation for the climb.
“It’s one thing to be physically fit, but you need the technical skills and mental fortitude to push yourself,” he says. “And quite a bit of courage.
“It was not for the faint of heart because you are pretty out there. Bottom line is that you have to have that will to push yourself beyond what you think you can do.”
Learn more — Check out Vince Anderson’s firsthand account of his historic climb up the Rupal Face at www.skywardmountaineering.com.
Staff writer Scott Willoughby contributed to this report.
