It is a heartbreaking story. Sad. And it can be summed up like this: a mountaineer dies while trying to recover the body of his friend, who died before his very eyes a year ago. Many mountaineers go out to the mountains to celebrate life written in capital letters, always trying to eliminate death from an equation that plays with variables as disparate as luck, objective dangers, human errors and even the weight of fate. Russians Dmitry Golovchenko and Sergei Nilov, elite mountaineers twice awarded the highest prize in existence, the Piolets d’Or, knew they were lucky. No one knew or could imagine that their team, apparently, was cursed.
However, you cannot survive a curriculum like theirs without a certain amount of good fortune, as when in 2019 they spent 18 days climbing the east side of Jannu (7,710 m), the last six without food, groping their way through a terrain riddled with avalanches and crevasses. It took them so many days to get down, to escape the mountain, that Nilov got into a joking mood and sent an ironic text message via satellite phone: “Seriously, we want to go down!” But visibility was so poor and the terrain so labyrinthine that they did not dare put one foot in front of the other for fear of falling into the void.
Good fortune feeds ambition, so in August 2023, the two men stood on the southeast ridge of Gasherbrum IV (7,925 m), in the Karakoram mountain range, part of the Himalayas, with the intention of opening a new route there. Near the summit, above 7,600 meters, in extremely technical terrain, they found a tiny platform of snow on which they carved a ledge with an ice axe where they anchored their tent. That same night, uncomfortable and insecure, they decided to reposition their tent, improve the platform and stabilize their small home. Nilov, looking like a philosopher with his glasses and pointed beard, went outside and got to work while Golovchenko sorted the material inside so as not to lose anything. Then something unthinkable happened: the tent slid down the slope of a steep snow corridor, dragging Golovchenko with it, who had released himself from the safety rope to facilitate the work. Three days later, and after suffering an ordeal to escape alive from the death trap he found himself in, Nilov reached the foot of the ridge, found his friend’s remains, wrapped them in the tent’s fabric and swore that he would return, that he would take him home, that his family could bury him and visit him in the cemetery.
On Saturday, August 17, Nilov and two other Russian climbers began the rescue efforts for Golovchenko’s body. They did not even get close: the collapse of a serac (unstable masses of ice found on glaciers) caused an avalanche that destroyed the group as it advanced in the lower part of the mountain. At the time of the count, Nilov was missing. No trace. The other two were seriously injured: Sergei Mironov and Mikhail Mironov (same surname, no family ties) were stranded at about 6,200 meters, but at least they could count on the help from a distance of two other companions, who, being ill, had stayed at base camp. Both of them took charge of organizing the rescue efforts, in agreement with the army and with local climbers. The two seriously injured climbers were, at least, fortunate enough to find Nilov’s backpack and another one that was snatched from them at the time of the avalanche. They had sleeping bags and stoves to melt snow and keep hydrated, although one of them could barely move with a broken hip and several ribs. Immobilized and exposed to new avalanches, they remained near the site of the accident until the 20th, when six Pakistani mountaineers (whose names have not been released) managed to reach the injured and lead them to an area where a Pakistani military helicopter was able to evacuate them.
Not so for Nilov. One of the pilots claimed to have seen his body, but the bad weather in the area has put paid to any attempt to recover his remains.
Dmitry Golovchenko and Sergei Nilov represented a type of mountaineering that was dying out: they valued discretion, amateurism (even though they were elite mountaineers, they had jobs on the side) and respect for the sacred idea of rope climbing, in which the sum of two talents multiplies individual value. Neither of them wanted to change their dance partner: they felt in perfect communion with their desires and abilities. It was not about climbing mountains, but about doing it together.
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