Nastya Runova – Broad Peak
Nastya Runova reached the summit of Broad Peak on July 18th. But that was only half of the story!
Here she gives us a breakdown of this past week.
“On July 13, there was a meeting of all groups trying to storm Broad Peak, where a joint decision was made to attack from the base camp on July 15 and pave the way to the top together.
“Most participants agreed to work as there was a large amount of snow on the route above the third camp and there were no railroad ropes.
“On the night of July 15, groups moved straight to the second camp, on the afternoon of July 16 most groups reached 3rd camp. I teamed up with Oswald (Poland), we shared the second and third camp that we had previously established with Saulius (Lithuania), but after Andrei (Israfil’s partner) decided to leave the expedition, the joint decision was made that Saul would unite with Israfil, and I with Oswald.
“Oswald and I were planning a simultaneous assault on the top, same plans followed by Niels (Belgium) and Hugo (Bolivia), we were moving alongside and planning to climb without artificial oxygen and carrier assistance, organizing camps on our own.
“To our great surprise, on July 17, most participants who had planned to work on the route prior to this, decided to arrange a day of rest so the route and railings were set only by a team of about 5 people, Niels (Belgium), Hugo (Bolivia), Lotta (Finland), Oswald (Poland) and I.
“Together we managed to get to 7700 m only, first we stooped into a 10 meter crack, after which we tried to get around the snow slope, but at that time the periling team decided to turn around and continue the next day and we remained.
In 45 minutes, we managed to move not more than 20 meters and decided to turn around as we definitely wouldn’t have enough energy to handle the rest of the route.
“Back to camp we decided to storm the next day as not enough work was done and quite a lot of energy wasted. Maybe it was a mistake on my part.
“On the night of July 18 at 2am Oswald and I attacked and caught up with Niels and Hugo a few hours later. The three of them were moving ahead of me but I was able to catch up with them in the shoulder area.
“In the shoulder area, most of the participants of the storming rested while waiting for the organization of the rope. The guys and I decided not to waste time waiting and move on to storm, they moved faster than me and after a while I lost sight and continued to storm on my own. The next time I saw them they were already returning from the main top. I had about an hour left to go, Mr Kim and his porter followed me.
“Around 5pm I reached the main top and started descent, there was a strong wind and I was quite exhausted after two days of work and wrote Oswald on Inreach to wait for me in the shoulder area.
“Approaching the scheduled meeting point and crashed into a perilous rope, a snow cornice collapsed on me and I hung on the railings over China, a couple of meters from Oswald. I began to call for help, but I almost completely lacked voice and chance that Oswald would hear me almost there was no calm, given the fact that about an hour walk from me there were still participants.
“After a while, Little Hussein (Mr. Kim’s Porter) came into visual contact with me, he called for Oswald’s help and announced on the radio that the girl had snapped in the junction area and that she needed help.
“After that, for about 7 hours, I was tried to be pulled from the Chinese side together. The British who tried to storm the top, Paul and Peter came to help. The slope conditions didn’t call me to use the icebreaker to get to the top as the snow was crumbled like flour and fell asleep in any attempt to fix the icebreaker I was very exhausted I had no water or food for a long time my walkie sat down was very cold and I could hardly make any decisions.
“Just minutes before I was released, I found that Mr. Kim was a couple of meters away, I thought he descended to help me get to the top and speed up the process of descent of other participants who couldn’t walk this section of the road without using a perilous rope. After getting to the top, I was very frozen and exhausted and sent all the remaining forces to go down to the third camp and not freeze at night here. In an attempt to get out of the Chinese side, I lost one cat and a jumar.
“Oswald and Stefan (Austria) started descent with me helping me. After half an hour, I snapped at the rock site for the second time and lost the torch, Oswald gave me his spare. After that, due to extreme fatigue, I made a number of mistakes during the crossing on the railings and flew away by 300 meters, miraculously passing the big crack we went around the day before. By chance, I stayed intact and didn’t even lose any of the remaining gear.
“Oswald and Stefan approached me to ensure that everything was fine, warmed water and we continued very slowly descend to camp 3. Strongly tired, Oswald and I constantly stumbling and in line fell to the third camp, literally holding hands. One hundred meters before the third camp, we met Vitaly and Anton from @Deathzonefreeride, Vitaly began to ask what happened and how I feel. What I was able to tell him with my busted head only that everything is fine and I’m moving to the bottom. Anton gave me a cherry compote, for which he collected berries with his children and gave me warm gloves.
“After sleeping a couple of hours in the third camp, Anton gave me a dexametazone injection, Thomas (Norway) lended me his cat and at 12pm, Oswald, Neils and Hugo turned the third camp down. Neils observing my deplorable condition and a huge backpack insistently grabbed the backpack and dropped it to his second camp, saying he wouldn’t tell anyone about it!
“After curling the second camp, we continued to descend with our huge backpacks in the fourth time, visually watching each other. On the glacier, our cook Rahim and his assistant Hasan met me with coke and strawberry cookies, took my huge backpack and walked to the base camp. Sleep, food, analysis of your mistakes and recovery.”
