Storm and Sorrow in 1990

Trail & Timberline — No. 862 (June 1991)

By Ken Nolan
 

During the summer of 1990, CMCers Ken Nolan and Jean Aschenbrenner attended the International Mountaineering Camp in the Soviet Pamirs. They were part of a five-person team attempting 23,400' Peak Lenin. In what was perhaps the worst accident in mountaineering history, 43 climbers died on the evening of July 13th when a serac fall triggered a massive avalanche that obliterated Camp 2 on the standard route. Forty-two of them were members or foreign guests of the Leningrad Climbing Club.

The Achik-Tash valley was the scene of an earlier tragedy. Storm and Sorrow in the High Pamirs tells the story of the first International Mountaineers Camp in 1974, during which 16 climbers died amid storms, avalanches, and earthquakes.

The thing that really made the difference was the helicopter. We had one. They didn't. It slowed us down. Not the helicopter itself, you understand, just the knowing that we had one.

We arrived from Moscow in early July. The meadows above Achik-Tash were thick with flowers, small, everywhere, underfoot. The great Pamirs rose beyond, immense, glaciered, bright in the sun of our first days.

Among the flowers were the memorials. Graves, cairns, pictures, names, dates, words. Gary Ullin. Zdnek Hermann. The eight Soviet women of Storm and Sorrow. Dieter Aimare. There were many, more than when I was there five years before.

We were part of the International Mountaineering Camp. Across the valley was the basecamp of the Leningrad Climbing Club, training for an expedition to Cho Oyu. They hosted foreign climbers, too. We had a helicopter. They didn't.

The walk to Camp 1 on Peak Lenin can be interesting. Up the green valley, across the Pass of the Travelers, through the black rock moraine, along the Lenin Glacier. Interesting, but long. A trip to make only once. That's why we had a helicopter. The camp had a helicopter for many reasons, but the others weren't important.

The weather turned bad. It snowed on the meadows, heavy, wet, flower-crushing. Plastic boots appeared. Tents collapsed. The helicopter couldn't fly. We waited.

They made progress. During the lighter snows and brief clearings, they moved up to Camp 1. We had a helicopter. We wouldn't move until it did.

We gave up, made two carries, moved to Camp 1. Our helicopter appeared, a tent city was born. Camp 2 was 4,000' to the right, hidden by icefall buttress, clouds. Higher still the Razdelny Saddle began the gentle, spindrift-plumed sweep of the summit ridge.

The glacier snapped, crackled, creaked under the tents. Avalanches rustled in the distance, rumbled closer by, many sounds hidden by the falling snow, the evening stoves. We were restless, impatient, worried that we were behind schedule. Most of them were at Camp 2. We wanted to be.

Beneath the Razdelny Saddle, a serac crumbled. A few chunks of broken ice began to slide, insignificant on the huge north face. The avalanche expanded. Camp 2 was in the way. Forty-three of them were pushed into crevasses, buried. Two were swept into the icefall, lived.

Rescue operations recovered three bodies in two weeks. We reached the Razdelny Saddle. The weather stayed bad. We didn't climb the peak. A Swiss died above Camp 2. Four Russians died on a crevasse on the Peak Korzhenevsky.

Back at Achik-Tash, the snow was gone. Most of the people, too. The Kirgiz had arrived with their yurts, sheep, bright colors rivaling our parkas and boots. They still made the best bread in the world.

There was a new memorial. A crude wooden cross. Flowers, bread, and chocolate, offerings at the base. Six pairs of initials for Czechs who died at Camp 2.

Our helicopter flew us back to the world. We were there in 45 minutes. The bus would have taken ten hours.