Free Buried in the Sky: The Extraordinary Story of the Sherpa Climbers on K2's Deadliest Day by Peter Zuckerman, Amanda Padoan

the turnaround time, Shaheen earned his reputation as one of the sanest of the madmen who take on winter ascents. Shimshalis respected his judgment, and if a local carpenter or a shepherd wanted to become a mountaineer, Shaheen was the man to talk to.
    In 2001, two such men had approached Shaheen for climbing instruction. Twenty-four-year-old Karim Meherban and twenty-five-year-old Jehan Baig had been scrambling up mountainsides since they were boys, using hemp rope and ibex-horn anchors to reach the grazing lands. Now the two shepherds wanted to earn climbers’ salaries.
    “Karim and Jehan became my little brothers,” said Shaheen. “I set technical routes on the White Horn and made them climb the ice, over and over, until I knew they had the skills.”
    Shaheen’s students proved not only strong but lucky, with Jehan cheating death more than once. When Jehan was crossing an icy pass near Shimshal, the slope slithered beneath his boots as though the mountain were shedding its skin. He couldn’t sprint faster than the tons of sliding snow, so he waded to a boulder, wrapped his arms around the granite, and hugged. The rock shielded Jehan, and the flow rumbled around him, leaving him unharmed.
    Another avalanche brought Jehan recognition. On July 18, 2007, on K4, or Gasherbrum II, a German pulling fixed lines out of the snow triggered a slide. It partially buried Japanese mountaineer Hirotaka Takeuchi, crushing his rib cage and collapsing a lung. Jehan grabbed a shovel and sprinted more than 600 feet across the wash of the avalanche and made it to Hirotaka. Jehan dug him out of the snow and lowered him down to camp. Hirotaka survived, and Jehan won acclaim and gratitude. He’d seen enough to know that fortunes reverse in a split second on mountains. Now thirty-two, his experience made him seem much older than his friend Karim, whom clients called “Karim the Dream.”
    Unlike mountaineers who seldom look up from their boots, Karim reveled in the views and seemed unable to conceive of anything going wrong. It never did. In 2005 on Nanga Parbat, sometimes called “The Killer Mountain,” Karim reached the summit and earned a hefty tip from his French client, an aristocratic insurance salesman named Hugues Jean-Louis Marie d’Aubarède. Karim returned to Shimshal and told his two children about the climb; his youngest, a three-year-old named Abrar, begged to hear what had happened on the summit. Had Karim entered the magical crystal palace of Nanga Parbat? Was it true that mischievous fairies buzz around the mountaintop, dining at translucent tables and kicking off avalanches for fun?
    Karim shook his head. He’d seen nothing supernatural on Nanga Parbat, but he promised to pay better attention on the next climb. That peak, he announced, would be K2. His French client had hired him again for the following summer.
    Karim’s children cheered and hugged their father; his wife, Parveen, picked at the tablecloth. She asked her husband for more details about this plan. Wasn’t his client pushing sixty? Could Hugues handle the climb? Was the money worth the risk?
    Hugues brokers insurance, Karim replied. He is too sensible to sell our lives cheaply.
    Comforted by Karim’s confidence, Parveen congratulated her husband on getting the job and joined the rest of the family in celebration.
    Karim guided Hugues on K2 in 2006 and 2007 and returned home both times with a stack of rupees but no summit. In 2008, Hugues hired him again, and Karim told his wife that he’d reach the summit this time. After all, Karim now had experience from two previous attempts, and this summer he’d be climbing alongside his friends, Shaheen and Jehan. The Shimshalis had been hired by different teams—Karim by the French, Shaheen by the Serbians, Jehan by the Singaporeans—but they planned to help each other on the mountain. Maybe they’d even stand together on the top. “Everything seemed so perfect,” recalled Shaheen, echoing Karim’s