Brave Climber, Extreme Skiier

by Ernie Diaz

I don’t undertake these things to please my fellow skiers or my fellow climbers or my fellow rowers. I do them to please myself and, I like to think, to give something back to the man in the street, the guy who sits at a desk and maybe isn’t doing what he wants with his life. If anything, I’d just like to think I remind people that it’s possible to do what you want. If adventuring is about anything, that’s what it’s about.

- Ned Gillette

Muztag Ata was too much mountain for super explorer Sven Hedin, who made an unsuccessful bash of it in 1891. Rising over 7500 meters, ‘The Father of Icy Mountains’ kept mountaineers Eric Shipton and Bill Tillman off its peak in 1947, although they made it to within a heart-breaking seventy meters. It took a Chinese-Russian government-sponsored expedition to first reach the summit, in 1956. In 1980, adventurer Ned Gillette decided he wasn’t just going to climb to the top of Muztag Ata; he was going to ski back down.

Today it’s relatively easy to travel to Kashgar and arrange a ski-expedition on Muztag Ata, but not with Gillette. He was murdered ten years ago, at the base of Pakistan’s 6800 meter Laila Peak, in a botched robbery attempt. His many exploits survive him, including this 1981 National Geographic account of his record-breaking feat.

“Morning clouds linger above an old Kirgiz graveyard near road’s end at the base of Muztag Ata, where we establish our meadow camp. We are skiing writer Dick Dorworth, wilderness photojournalist Galen Rowell, ski instructor Jan Reynolds, cold-weather specialist Dr. Cameron Bangs, Jo Sanders, who made our travel arrangements, and myself.

The great whale-backed slope gives climbers little encouragement as they chase the same unchanging horizon hour after hour, all the while being dragged down by deep snow, thin air, and unexpected cold. ‘We live and learn,’ Tillman wrote, ‘and big mountains are stern teachers.’

We are skiers, howeer, and our strategy is new: to stay on top of the snow as we make our ascent. Our lightweight alpine skis are equipped with mountaineering bindings that hinge at the boot toe for easier climbing. Their bottoms are fitted with artificial sealskins to better grip the snow.

We’ll ascend the first half in stages, getting accustomed to the altitude until we reach our high camp – almost as high as Mount McKinley. Then we’ll dash to the top in a single, demanding push.

Desert moose, we affectionately call them, Bactrian camels haul skis, food, and gear to the snow line at Camel Camp (17,000 ft). Interpreter Wang Wei Pei helps the Kirgiz camel drivers fasten the unlikely cargo to the camels’ backs. We carry our own loads to Camp I at 18,000 feet and to Camp II at 20,250 feet, waiting out snowstorms on the way. But altitude sickness forces Dick to descend from Camp I, and exhaustion halts Cameron at Camp II.

Reaching the top wont be the only prize for us. Others have been there before, including our mountaineering fiend Chu Ying Hua. More than the summit, we seek the thrill of skiing down, of floating across this immensity in hauntingly perfect snow.

So we set out from Camp II on July 21, 1980, on a grueling ten-hour charge to the top. But the receding horizon taunts us throughout the day. In a race between exhaustion and coming nightfall, I recall that none of us has ever climbed so high before.

Two hours before dark, however, Galen makes a final, painful push, and at last reaches the summit. Jan and I follow. And for a moment, at the top, we revel in the view – an orange sun easing behind the Soviet Pamirs as golden shadows rise up the slope to meet us.

Then we push off for the downhill run atop eight inches of powdery snow. Jan sets a new altitude record for women skiers. And we slip into the instinctive rhythms of survival skiing. By the time we reach Camp II, darkness is nearly as complete as the smooth, deep satisfaction we share.”

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1. China’s Extreme Skiing
2. First Snow Of The Year

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