Two colourful dots on the vastness of the west face of K2, an intimidating wall rising 3,000 metres from base camp. Two dots that stand out clearly on the snow, but that do not move, that do nothing to get closer to each other, to fill a dark hollow with life. The two dots, it is presumed, it is feared, are the remains of Japanese mountaineers Kazuya Hiraide and Kenro Nakajima. According to Pakistani authorities, the couple had suffered a fall when they were at around 7,500 metres above sea level. The local army’s heavy helicopters have located their whereabouts, but they are not equipped to carry out complex rescue tasks: there is speculation about the remote possibility that a team could approach the west face and try to reach the place where the injured are on foot. “It is not clear whether they are alive or not,” said a spokesman for Ishii Sports, where Hiraide worked, on Sunday.
Everything seems to indicate that any rescue attempt will be in vain. The climbing season on K 2, as well as on the neighbouring eight-thousanders (Broad Peak, Gasherbrum I and II) has been disastrous: wind and snow have prevented progress in the mountains for weeks. At the last minute, a window of good weather forecast between 25 and 28 July put all the expeditions on alert, which quickly woke up from their slumber. On 24 July, Hiraide and Nakajima announced that they were going to meet the west face of K 2. In the rain. Just three days later, a member of the film crew of the French mountaineer Benjamin Védrines (present on the classic route of the mountain to attempt a speed record for ascent and subsequent descent by paraglider) raised the alarm: the Pakistani army was searching from the air for the whereabouts of the Japanese couple.
“I am preparing the most important expedition of my career; perhaps after that I can retire and spend more time with my family,” ventured the Japanese mountaineer Kazuya Hiraide just a few months ago during a visit to the Basque Country organised by his sponsor, Ternua. There was no trace of frivolity in his intention: to leave elite mountaineering behind, to rest, to abandon a life of danger, of exploration, the assumption of a wild existence in the mountains, to discover perhaps what it is like to live without the driving force of passion that has made him one of the most important and discreet mountaineers of the century. That day, Hiraide ran several kilometres before dawn on an empty stomach, with his feet mutilated, several frozen and amputated fingers. “I am already 44 years old, I am not old but I am starting to be,” he smiled, “and I am starting to look at the mountains with a certain fear. The fear is there, but when I leave it, Kenro Nakajima (34 years old) will take over from me,” he said with a proud smile.
Together, Hiraide, the mentor, and Nakajima, the faithful pupil, had earned two Golden Piolets after opening Shispare (2017) and Rakaposhi (2019), but they had also triumphed on Karun Roh (2022) and on the north face of Tirich Mir (2023). Before, in 2009, Hiraide and her partner Kei Taniguchi had won a Golden Piolet after opening a new route on Kamet. Never before had a woman won the award that honours the best mountaineers on the planet. Taniguchi died in 2015 after an accident on Mount Kurodake. The loss came close to ending Hiraide’s life as a mountaineer forever: she had no desire to continue and no partner to do so with until chance allowed her to find a solid companion in Nakajima. In 19 expeditions to the Himalayas, Hiraide has been able to open 12 new routes, always on technical and remote mountains.
The West Face of K2 is a monster that has only been conquered once, in 2007, at the behest of an elite Russian group of 23 climbers under the command of visionary Pavel Shabalin. The team then stayed on the mountain from June 7 to August 22, pushing their options to the limit. Four teams of four climbers took turns working on the mountain, under terrible conditions: not only did they have to overcome the enormous technical difficulties of the route, but winds of more than 100 km/h threatened to tear them off the wall. They fixed ropes to the summit and placed eleven climbers on top, without using bottled oxygen or porters and choosing the central part of the face made up of endless, technical rock walls. Theirs is arguably the hardest route on the most complex of mountains. Seventeen years later, Hiraide and Nakajima, perhaps encouraged by the mind-blowing success of an American trio on the North Face of Jannu last year, announced that they would tackle the West Face of K2 in alpine style, rather like strolling under the protection of an umbrella in a poor neighborhood shaken by an earthquake. Pavel Shabalin would declare on his return that the weight of uncertainty and responsibility on the West Face of K2 had nearly destroyed his mental fortitude. There was no purist, no guru of alpine style who dared to find fault with the Russian expedition, but everyone wondered whether humans would ever be capable of climbing the West Face of K2 with only a thin rope and a school-sized backpack for luggage. Hiraide and Nakajima believed it was possible.
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