The Dark Glow of the Mountain

The Dark Glow of the Mountains

In June 1984, the mountaineer Reinhold Messner organized...

...an expedition in the mountains of the Karakorum.

Hans Kammerlander, on the right of the picture, was with him.

Their objective: Two summits in the chain of the Gasherbrums

both just over 8000 meters in altitude.

Here is the Gasherbrum 1.

Gasherbrum means "THE LUMINOUS MOUNTAIN."

Their idea was to climb the two mountains,

one after the other, without stopping, without fixed camps

and without oxygen, without anything other than a backpack.

Messner already climbed them separately.

Here is the Gasherbrum 2.

I don't have a true profession. I didn't learn anything particular.

I've done a lot of things, I can make a living doing many things.

It is everything I need.

I finance my expeditions thanks to mountaineering equipment.

I don't need anything else.

I am very happy not to have a profession.

I think that otherwise one renounces all creative activity.

I grew up on a farm on a mountain in South Tyrol.

I helped my father on our small farm.

My mother died when I was very young.

My father was not in good health.

Then I worked as a bricklayer for 5 years

I also had to take care of housework.

What was the housework?

The usual works on a farm, I took care of everything.

I still do when I'm at home

Now, I work as a mountain guide the summer

and as ski teacher in the winter.

And I have a lot of time in the spring and to the fall

to climb in the Alps and to participate in expeditions.

Our idea was not to make a movie about mountain-climbing per se

What we wanted to discover is what happens...

in the head of the mountaineers when they rush in...

...into such extreme endeavors.

What is the fascination that drives them up these peaks like addicts.

Aren't these mountains and peaks like something deep down inside us all?

in the soul of each among us?

Here we are in Skardu in the north of Pakistan

the last accessible city by car or by plane.

We buy some supplies with Rozi Ali, porter and cook

a friend of Reinhold Messner from numerous expeditions.

Selection of porters takes place the following morning.

Many have participated in Messner's previous climbs.

Most are Baltises, people from the mountains of the north of Pakistan.

Just after Skardu, the road stops.

The provisions are brought by Jeep until the village of Dasso.

from there to base camp it is 150 kilometers on foot.

The last 60 kilometers take place on a glacier.

The camp will be at an altitude of about 5000 m.

After 5 days we find a resting place

It is a warm sulfurous spring

the last real bath for many weeks.

Actually, nothing more cna go wrong than on any other expedition.

Of course, we don't know yet if we will have strength

the endurance or even the nerves we will need to see it through.

Nothing like this has ever been tried before, we lack reference.

I've climbed 8000'rs before,

but never two in one go, so it's something new. not just for the two of us, but for any mountain climber

We're kind of guinea pigs. We leave...

without knowing if we won't be exhausted after the first peak

or go mad, or not be able to stand eachother anymore.

In this case we would be obligated to come back again.

Or it may be that, after having climbed the first peak

the desire to realize our goal will giv eus

enough strength and will power to climb the second summit.

If we are very lucky and if we are in good shape,

if the snow conditions are ideal, and that is absolutely necessary

if we are both in good shape physically and emotionally,

we can succeed.

Athletes, say like Soccer players, forget frienship on the field

You two train as a team like others.

Is necessary to be friends?

Could you discuss that aspect a little?

How long have you known each other?

About 5 or 6 years,

Mostly since I work as mountain guide

in his school.

We've been going on expeditions together for 3 years.

Are you close friends?

I would not say that. We know each other very well

...and I chose Hans for this expedition

among all mountaineers that I know personally.

Hans is one of very few ones which I believe can make it.

I've been on about 30 expeditions

and I always pick my partners still in the same way.

Without being necessarily friends, I always have 100% confidence in their ability...

...in their cleverness of climbeing,

...their intuitive knowledge of atmospheric weather conditions,

and of the forces of nature such as avalanches, snow storms and so on.

Above all, I knew that they had as much Endurance as I had.

Otherwise sooner or later we would have failed.

One of us would be responsible for the other's death.

Each of us assumes personal responsibility.

There is no alternative.

Not until I know that's clear do I have the self-assurance

to ask someone else to join me.

We reach the glacier at an altitude of about 4000 m.

The porters have already gathered...

...the last pieces of firewood.

They are all fearful of what is to come.

After 10 days of walking through the canyons and then up the glacier,

a massages like this is great.

Ibrahim is a very hard working porter

even though most of the others have already left us,

he wanted to stay to take me apart just one more time.

He massaged each of us during the walk up here

and now that we're beginning our climb

he takes it very seriously.

Now he's pulling my fingers out one by one

If I understand him well, he learned the technique from his father.

We are relatively safe here at the base camp

No, we are safe. This is a real pleasure.

But higher up, it is one hazard after the other

Just above the base camp...

...there are hundreds of crevasses.

Further up is a pretty stiff rock face

and then, naturally, there are the storms near the summit.

On my solo climb on the Nanga Parbat, in 1978,

I had incredible luck.

Now he's tearing my ears off.

I climbed all day, made good time

and I set up camp above a sérac...

at an altitude of about 6500 m in a well sheltered place.

The following morning at 5 o'clock, I folded the camp,

there was a light tremor. I hardly noticed it and yet I felt it.

The netx moment there was an incredible avalanche around me.

Just below me an enormous block of sérac...

as big as a city block...

detached itself and flew into the valley.

My own base camp that I saw...

...the day before as a red spot,

...was covered with snow.

Then later friends at the base camp told to me that snow.

...had fallen for half an hour.

I was lucky

Had it happened the day before

I would have flown off with the avalanche.

A "classic expedition" to climb these mountains

would have porters to transport 1 or 2 tons

of material and provisions.

It would be made by a large number of members, set up high altitude camps

with many tents. And with the climbers moving back and forth from tent to tent

would eventually form a pyramid

with the strongest then being able to make it to the summit.

We, on the other hand, climb alpine style.

We have a small tent and only these clothes.

If it gets too hot, we stick them in our backpacks

A thin rope, two picksaxes,

a special pickaxe which can stretch out,

and a pickaxe made of titanium that's very light.

And this strange rope?

It is not a real rope.

It's called a fix rope. We use it double when we belay each other

But we'll hardly ever use it because we climb free style

Each of us is responsible of himself.

We use the rope if he have to.

Can we see the camera you're taking with you?

We're taking a movie camera with us, a small Bell & Howell

in order to shoot the summit and as testimony of the expedition.

How many toes did you lose, Hans?

I still have all of mine, thank God.

I haven't lost any to frostbite yet. I hope I won't this time.

I still have four, four whole toes. I others are gone.

Will you be in radio contact with the camp?

No, no radio contact. It would be too heavy

Anyway, no one here could come to rescue us.

It is our risk and if we don't make it than that's the way it is.

Only two of the porters are still in the camp

Rozi Ali, the cook, prepares chapati, a kind of flat bread.

I made my first Himalayan expedition in 1970, and we reached the summit of Nanga Parbat.

Of the four of us, I am the only one who is still alive.

A German, Peter Scholz and Felix Krün, an Austrian,

perishes several years afterlater.

My brother died during this expedition in Nanga Parbat.

Later,in 1972,I was on the Manaslu,the seventh highest mountain in the world,in Nepal...

and a member of the expedition froze to death in a snow storm just under the summit

and another went mad and died.

During all these years, I met mountaineers,Englishmen, the bets in the world

and two or three years later i learned that they had died

...on some big expedition.

I think the fact that people want to climb mountains...

...is a sign of degeneration in mankind.

As long as people must work hard to earn a living,

to keep their houses warm, to work small fields as mountain people have to,

they don't think about climbing mountains.

They are afraid of the mountains, of the avalanches, of the storms,