Western Eyes on K2 Part II

February 25, 2013March 21, 2016 / Andrew Szalay / 5 Comments

This is part II of my posts on the first image of K2. Now that you understand why the photo is significant, let me tell you about how it was lost and then resurfaced.There are probably countless climbing antiques and photographs that have remarkable stories to tell if only they were well researched and featured according to their merit. In fact, I don’t think that there is a dull climbing story, only tales that are poorly told.

K2 1993
In 1993 — the same year Greg Mortenson, the now infamous author of Three Cups of Tea attempted the mountain — a climber with roots in Australia and a passion for photography set forth to reach the top as well. Bob Schelfhout Aubertijn wasn’t yet interested in the history of the mountain. He hadn’t even seen the images taken by Vittorio Sella. Without topping out, Schelfhout Aubertijn returned home and his interest in K2 turned into passion. Some may say that it’s an obsession.

Since his attempt, Schelfhout Aubertijn built an extensive library around K2’s early exploration to its contemporary climbs. To illustrate how comprehensive his compilation is, he has 13 copies of Ardito Desio’s account of the 1954 first ascent of K2 — one in English, another in Italian, German, French, Spanish, Swedish… Of all the foreign language editions in print, he is only missing the Japanese edition. Schelfhout Aubertijn is also a bit of a linguist, which allows him to glean from the interesting details and nuances between translations. With those skills and his experience on the mountain itself, he’s an extraordinary authority.

His collection is greater than just books. He also owns Fritz Weissner’s ritual robe and cap, and carabiners that have been to K2’s summit that were given to him by Anatoli Boukreev. Then there is the art, ranging from paintings to photos by Sella himself.

If you read The Suburban Mountaineer regularly you can understand what Schelfhout Aubertijn sought by climbing K2. He calls it experiencing the “true essence” in mountaineering. But clearly for him it was a beginning rather than and end.

Six Months in the Himalaya
Unfortunately, one book about K2 Schelfhout Aubertijn doesn’t own is Jacot-Guillarmod’s record of the 1902 expedition, Six Mois dans l’Himalaya. It’s rare and listed by one collector at US$2,500. This book contained the Jacot-Guillarmod’s photo — the first photo — of K2 that the Duke of the Abruzzi no doubt referred to as beta for his expedition soon afterwards.

The book fell into dated obscurity. (Aside: Other books come to this purgatory and I recently noticed that Don Mellor’s out-of-print guidebook to climbing in the Adirondacks is now fetching over US$100, though Mellor’s book seems to remain in demand.) For K2, other stories from the Duke’s expedition and Sella’s superb photographs superseded Jacot-Guillarmod’s work from his six-month visit to the Karakorum.

Inde
The images Jacot-Guillarmod took were preserved on glass stereo plates, similar to slides for a projector your teacher may have used in school before SmartBoards, except there were a pair meant to be seen through a stereo viewer. They were among several others. The collection was simply labeled “Inde”, French for India.

The private owner put them up for auction on Ebay and they caught the eye of a photographer hobbyist. That same hobbyist was Bob Schelfhout Aubertijn. The images on the eight plates were of pictures you might imagine in an old book of British India with one plate devoid of people with a foreboding landscape on the lower half and on the top half a bright shining pyramid feature. He asked the seller for a larger image than the one posted online. Unmistakably, it was K2.

Schelfhout Aubertijn bid and won the auction.

Verascope Richard
Without knowing when the images were taken or by whom, the glass plates were merely a historic curiosity. The only clue was a notation on the margin of the slide, which read, “Verascope Richard.” After some digging, Schelfhout Aubertijn found that it was a French camera company that produced cameras from 1880 to 1930. That gave the image a window of time.

In addition to keeping excellent records, Schelfhout Aubertijn also has an good memory. He immediately narrowed the field of possible photographers, considering the expeditions I mentioned in my previous post. Schelfhout Aubertijn’s memory and collections for reference were also sufficiently comprehensive enough to rule out Younghusband — he did not see K2 from the south — and the others.

Schelfhout Aubertijn’s senses went on “full alert,” when he discovered that Jacot-Guillarmod used a Verascope when he went to the next highest accessible mountain in the world, Kangchenjunga in 1905.

American Alpine Club Library
Connecting the dots turned into a game of six-degrees of separation. Schelfhout Aubertijn contacted his friend, award winning author Bernadette McDonald, because he knew she read Six Mois. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a copy and referred him to Katie Ives at Alpinist. But she had actually only seen copies of pages from the rare book, which were made available by the American Alpine Club Library. That meant a call to our mutual friend, Beth Heller, who was the librarian at that time.

Heller, with Adam McFarren, got scans of pages with photos printed in the book to Schelfhout Aubertijn. I know Heller to be extremely prompt with email and she was true to character. It wasn’t the K2 image, but they matched some of the other glass slides he had acquired — exactly.

Schelfhout Aubertijn was getting close, but there was still a giant leap to be made to arrive on the cover of Alpinist. I’ll cover that in my next post about the first K2 photograph and tell you about these stereo plates and why even Bradford Washburn loved them.

Thanks for dropping by again. If you enjoyed this post, please consider following the Suburban Mountaineer on Facebook or Twitter. Climbing matters, even though we work nine to five.

To read the next post in this series, click here.

Western Eyes on K2

February 21, 2013August 1, 2013 / Andrew Szalay / 4 Comments

The cover and mountain profile of K2 from Alpinist 37 (courtesy Alpinist magazine)

On a subject tangetial to the topics on The Suburban Mountaineer, but quite impactful, Natalie and I are excited that our home is listed for rent and we signed a lease for a new home with more space for our family’s growing needs. We’ll miss a lot of wonderful things about our current home but the move means a dedicated space for my books and maps as well as room to finally use my hangboard. I’ll let you know how that goes after we move in a month.

Now back in December I teased a little project I was working on concerning the first photographic image of K2. I love this story that I am about to start telling because it makes me feel closer to the events that helped shape our world. It also makes the people from the past become more alive.

The story began last winter when I received the 2011-12 winter issue of Alpinist in the mail. It was issue 37. I usually pause whatever climbing literature I am reading and go through the magazine from beginning to end. 37’s feature was part I of a Mountain Profile piece on K2 (28,251 ft./8,611m.) and the image on its cover was of the mountain in what looked like sepia; clearly an antique. Inside on the table of contents page the citation given for the image said: “The south face of K2 (8611m), with a survey rod and a porter stick in the foreground. Taken during a 1902 expedition, and recently found at an auction by Bob A. Schelfhout Aubertijn, this is one of the earliest photos of K2. Jules Jacot-Guillarmod/Courtesy Bob A. Schelfhout Aubertijn/Top of the World Books.”

I knew the proprietor of Top of the World Books, Greg Glade. He actually reached out to me about something unrelated sometime before issue 37 came out. His shop is a wealthy resource of books and artifacts on mountaineering and arctic exploration. I reached out to Greg this past fall. He gave me the gist of the story, which unwrapped the reference in issue 37 a little better and he told me something the reference didn’t say; it was the very first photographic image of K2.

HIMALAYAS 1902
The Himalayas and its Karakorum Range were still mostly a mystery to the majority of westerners in 1902. While the Great Trigonometric Survey estimated the heights of many of the Himalayan greats in the 1850s, the valleys and features were largely unmapped. In fact, the first western explorer in the region was Francis Younghusband in 1886-87, when he documented the way through the range via Muztagh Pass (west of K2). But the point of that route was to give the British options for military maneuvers rather than an interest in mountain exploration.

Two other small expeditions of westerners visited the area around K2 in 1890 and 1892 but they were of little significance to exploring the mountain. However, these two expeditions were drawn there because K2 was the highest accessible mountain in the world.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Mount Everest was shut off to foreigners. Both Nepal and Tibet denied access to all outsiders and so the mountaineers that were heading out from the Alps seeking greater challenges focused elsewhere in the greater Himalaya. Those that traveled there were relying on the Trigonometric Survey data from the 1850s and the little beta from Younghusband. The next two highest points became a fascination and both K2, the second highest mountain, and Kangchenjunga (28,169 ft./8,586 m.), the third highest mountain, were within British-controlled India.

1902 EXPEDITION
In 1902, Oscar Eckenstein and Aleister Crowley lead a small team to make the first attempt on K2. They pledged to climb higher than anyone had climbed previously in order to achieve the world altitude record. The team’s physician was also a photographer. Dr. Jules Jacot-Guillarmod took the first photographic image of K2 and it was published in his book Six Mois dans l’Himalaya (1904). After the mountain’s elevation recording by the Trigonometric Survey, this may have become the next piece of beta for future climbers. While I do not know for certain, I suspect the leader of the next expedition, the Duke of the Abruzzi, saw this book and this image. The Himalayas and K2 were beginning to be unmasked.

It’s a bit of revisionist history, but the 1902 attempt and this photo by Jacot-Guillarmod may have been a symbolic moment for the Himalayas. The blank on the map wasn’t just replaced by contour lines but an avatar or icon.

In my next post about K2’s first photograph I’ll tell you about how this image resurfaced and introduce you to an extraordinary linguist and K2 historian, Bob A. Schelfhout Aubertijn.

Thanks for dropping by again. If you enjoyed this post, please consider following the Suburban Mountaineer on Facebook or Twitter. Climbing matters, even though we work nine to five.

To read the next post in this series, click here.

Sources: 1) Greg Glade, Top of the World Books; 2) Katie Ives, Alpinist; 3) Bob A. Schelfhout Aubertijn; and 4) Viesturs, Ed and David Roberts, K2, 2011.

A Quick Note on Everest

February 15, 2013March 21, 2016 / Andrew Szalay / Leave a comment

In my last post I said that Everest won’t get interesting again until a team traverses Nuptse, Lhotse and Everest. Well, that was until we’ve heard the news of an all-star line up going for challenging new routes on the mountain.

According to Backcountry.com, three new routes will be attempted:

Ueli Steck and Simon Moro will attempt a route on the south face, possibly direct;
Denis Urubko and Alexey Bolotov will also attempt a route on the south face, possibly direct; and
Gleb Sokolov and Alexander Kirikov will work on a new route on the east face.

It’s worth getting excited over, especially if it’s by fair means and in alpine style. If any of these teams can pull that off, it will be quite an accomplishment. I don’t know the Sokolov-Kirikov team as well as the others, but I always expect big results from Urubko.

Still, my Everest-cynicism has me cringing over the media circus that will follow .

Thanks for dropping by again. If you enjoyed this post, please consider following me on Facebook or Twitter. And feel free to share this post with your friends. Climbing matters, even though we work nine to five.

Everest 1963

February 14, 2013March 21, 2016 / Andrew Szalay / 2 Comments

Mount Everest‘s earliest attempt was in 1922. Its first ascent was in 1953. Its first winter ascent in 1980. Somewhere in the early 1990s current events stopped being interesting.

It became like the American space shuttle program. At first everyone watched every launch with wonder. Then attention slowly evaporated. Then no one cared unless the stale routine turned into a deadly fireball.

I regret that the mountain has become Burning Man on the Khumbu. Okay, that’s a bit off. Even unfair. Burning Man is a much more exciting event today.

So until some wild alpinists successfully traverses Lhotse, Everest and Nuptse in a single push, the activity around the mountain will likely remain less than compelling. But I still enjoy Everest for it’s history. And this spring marks the 50th anniversary of the first ascent of Everest by an American.

Over the holidays I read Jim Whitaker’s 1999 autobiography, A Life on the Edge: Memoirs of Everest and Beyond, published by the Mountaineers Books in Seattle. My copy was pre-read and evidently bought at an Eddie Bauer based on the price tag firmly baked into the dust jacket.

Whittaker recounts his introduction to climbing as a child, his involvement in mountain rescue organizations, his career as a guide on Mount Rainier, how he grew and expanded outfitter REI, his relationship with the Kennedy family, and of course, his ascent of Mount Everest.

Whittaker’s ascent was actually only the seventh ascent of Mount Everest. With so few lines completed to the top of the mountain at that time, the American expedition, which included Tom Hornbein, and Willi Unsoeld among others, had a virtually blank canvas and yet Whittaker and the majority of his teammates drew over the same line climbed by Hillary and Norgay 10 years earlier. Whittaker’s ascent became the popularly marketable climb through National Geographic and others because he was among the firsts. Yet, the next to reach the top, just days later, took a bold, original line and completed the first traverse of Everest. That climb receives plenty of accolades too, but in many ways deserves more.

During the1963 American attempt, the expedition split into two teams above the Ice Fall. One team, which Whittaker and Sherpa Nawang Gombu eventually lead the way to the top, took the route established by Hillary and Norgay up the Ice Fall along the South Col. Meanwhile, Hornbein and Unsoeld were going to create a new route up the West Ridge, and descend by the South Col.

There were more variables with the new route. The West Ridge was steeper and the progress was slow. Hornbein and Unsoeld arrived on the summit quite late in the day. They later spent a cold, strange night on the South Col route at high altitude with two of their partners that had summitted earlier that same day. Overall, their ascent was light and fast. In some ways, the climb was ahead of its time in the same way is was old fashioned; like going up an Alp in the 1800s with only your axe, a loaf of bread and a blaze of courage.

Years later Mark Twight would write with venom about the death of the American alpinist. Since we now know that Steve House and others have redeemed the American alpinist, I guess we can say what Twight perceived wasn’t really death but rather dormancy. Clearly the American alpinist went into hibernation after the West Ridge ascent, because Hornbein and Unsoeld were very much awake and alert American alpinists.

We can’t all be Hornbeins and Unsoelds or Whittakers. But perhaps there is some of that American alpinist dormant in us, ready to keep things interesting.

Sources: 1) Whittaker, Jim, A Life on the Edge: Memoirs of Everest and Beyond (Seattle: The Mountaineers Books, 1999); and 2) Hornbein, Tom, Everest: The West Ridge (Seattle: The Mountaineers Books, 1998).

What Do You Seek?

February 6, 2013March 21, 2016 / Andrew Szalay / Leave a comment

Maybe the question is not the tiresome why [do we climb],” Kelly Cordes says, “but what do we seek?” –Katie Ives, The Sharp End, Alpinist 41

My favorite commercial from the SuperBowl hit the mark on the climbing experience I want. Oddly, it was a car commercial.

It went like this: A high school kid is dressed in a tux and about to go to the prom solo. He gets a boost of confidence from his dad who lends him his Audi. He barges into the party and passionately kisses the girl, then the football-playing boyfriend decks him. The commercial cuts to the kid driving away with a smirk of satisfaction and a blackeye.

The part I savored wasn’t about what a car can do for me or the rush of adrenaline and excitement of taking a risk and becoming memorable (legendary, no doubt, in this case), but rather the combination of bravery and living in the moment. The high awareness of the moment and the perspective that comes with euphoria and sense of wholeness. It’s when all your bodily effort and your soul touches someplace that feels outside time. Happiness is involved too.

Kelly Cordes’ point about asking what we seek when we climb, rather than more broadly why do we climb is clever means to drill into our ice-core souls. Why has always been a dull bit when I’ve tried to clearly explain things to my family. I’ve felt the need to justify my love for climbing as an activity and an intellectual interest by addressing their values. I thought it was a persuasive approach. I realize now that I was being partly untruthful. I’d say that it helped me serve clients and customers better because I took the time to separate myself from the routine of suburban and urban life. I said it was about therapy. It worked but the answer didn’t really explain it entirely.

My family and friends found the pictures and stories from my trips the most compelling but they still questioned the safety and comfort of the endeavor. I usually just shrugged. I understand more clearly now that to do anything worthwhile, there is always a little bit of effort and it sometimes involves a degree or misery. I’m okay with that and I even apply the principle to a lot of activities in life.

What’s compelling for me — as in the real goal of an wilderness adventure — is to reach that moment of touching someplace metaphysically higher — call it heaven. After a long slog, the satisfaction of the top that opens to an expanse — particularly a wide open space such as the top of a route or a bald summit — is euphoric. I’m not worried or even thinking about due dates, my next errand or the emails or even bills accumulating at home or at work. It’s strictly thoughts of wonder at the place I’m in. Concentration on my balance. Conscious of the weather conditions and the angle of the sun. Blissfully happy.

The perspective is an important one. Because for me, I’ve found wide open space — even a hillside meadow — and the feeling of separation from the daily grind and elevation to a peaceful place nearly outside of time are somehow linked with me. There I have these fleeting moments of wholeness and bliss where the world seems to hold still both physically and in my modern multi-tasking mind. It’s still long enough that what really matters is crystal clear. I can think of numerous examples from coming to a clearing in Shenandoah, to the hillside unkempt lawn at my favorite resort in Vermont.

Unfortunately, wherever or however I come to those pinnacles, I can never hold onto them. A religious leader once told me that this was the difference between happiness and joy. Happiness is a temporal state. Alternatively, you can be going through a rough time and still be joyful. Joy has to do with keeping the bigger picture in mind, even if the memory of what’s important gets muddled in the confusion of life.

Interestingly, I just recently realized that I don’t have to climb to achieve that heavenly awareness. It came to me in a meadow at Trapp Family Lodge last September when I was playing with my wife and daughter. The state of mind was the same place I had visited during my most memorable climbs and hikes. Really. Yet, getting to that point took a lot of work: Building relationships, saving for the expense of time off, arranging for work to operate in my absence. The work of getting to that state was akin to sackcloth and ashes or a narrow bivy, low on rations and you dropped your fuel canister.

The temporal state of a happy place is hard to reach consistently. But the quest of boiling everything down to life’s essence is what I work on doing (mostly unsuccessfully) every day. It’s a quest, and I believe that there is no better means of reaching that objective than mountain climbing. I also think alpinism is the ultimate method to stretching one’s abilities and getting what I’m talking about. This may not be the case for everyone, but I suspect most would agree and where we disagree it’s a matter of semantics.

One final thing I want to mention: If you are only reading Climbing or Rock & Ice — which are good publications that I read too — you might not be getting all that you need if you’re into the essence and sharing the actual experience of climbing. You have to read Alpinist too. It helps identify and maybe even look into those soulful moments of being whole almost anytime.

Thanks for dropping by again. If you enjoyed this post, please consider following the Suburban Mountaineer on Facebook or Twitter. Climbing matters, even though we work nine to five.

More on those Ten Expeditions — Plus Four New Ones

January 31, 2013April 8, 2016 / Andrew Szalay / Leave a comment

This is a follow-up to my a recent post where I mentioned ten expeditions that received climbing grants. Here I provide some detail on those 10 expeditions that have received one or a combination of Mugs Stump Award or a Lyman Spitzer Cutting Edge Award plus four more that received funding from the Copp Dash Inspire Award. They’ll be attempting new routes in Afghanistan, Alaska, Greenland, the Karakorum, the Himalayas and in Patagonia. Enjoy!

AFGHANISTAN

Kohe Pamir — Mick Follari with Dylan Thomas. First ascent of central buttress of Kohe Pamir (6320m) in Afghanistan’s Wahkan Corridor.

ALASKA

Middle Peak, Saint Elias Range — John Frieh — his second attempt 5,000-ft W face of this unclimbed peak, this year with Daniel Harro and Colin Haley.

Mount Hayes — Ryan Johnson and Samuel Johnson will attempt the unclimbed 6,000-ft E face of the south summit — and possibly one of the largest unclimbed in N. America — followed by a ridge traverse to the higher main summit of Mount Hayes.

Mount Deborah — Michael Wejchert with Bayard Russell and Elliot Gaddy. Unclimbed 4,500-foot south face of Mt. Deborah (12,339′) in Alaska’s Hayes Range.

Lowell Peak — Pete Dronkers with Jonathan Crabtree. South Pillar of Lowell Peak (3630m), St. Elias Range, Canada.

GREENLAND

Torssukatak Fjord, Cape Farewell — Lizzy Scully with Quinn Brett. First ascents of unclimbed, unnamed big walls and ridges.

KARAKORUM

East Face of Uli Biaho Tower — Matt McCormick, Pat Goodman, Jean-Pierre Ouellet attempt a new route on the E face

Tahu Rutum (6651m) — Scott Bennett and Graham Zimmerman will attempt the steep mixed NW ridge, expecting everything from rock (free and aid) to ice and mixed.

Shispare Sar (7611m) — Doug Chabot, Rusty Willis and Bruce Miller attempt obvious N ridge route

K6 West (7100m) — Jesse Huey, Raphael Slawinski and Ian Welsted will visit the Charakusa valley to attempt NW face

Tahu Rutum (6651m) and Kunyang Chhish East (7431m) — Kyle Dempster attempted this in 2010 solo. Now, Dempster returns with Hayden Kennedy and Urban Novak for their third season together in the Karakorum to attempt the W face.

HIMALAYAS

Panbari (6905m) — Clint Helander and Mark Westman will go for this remote peak’s second ascent via the south pillar. It was previously not permitted, so the FA was in 2006.

Lunag Ri (6909m), Nepal. Chad Kellogg and David Gottlieb will make their second attempt on the NW face of this mountain, which is currently the highest permitted unclimbed peak in Nepal.

PATAGONIA

Cerro San Lorenzo — Bryan Gilmore, Mikey Schaefer and Josh Wharton attempt the E face of this peak.

Thanks for dropping by yet again. If you enjoyed this post, and haven’t already, please consider following the Suburban Mountaineer on Facebook or Twitter. I believe climbing matters, even though we work nine to five.

Sources: Alpinist, Alpinist and the American Alpine Club.