Many climbers have tried to crack the code of K2, the second- highest mountain (8611 m) and the deadliest peak on the Earth. Reinhold Messner who is considered the greatest mountaineer of the 20th century, christened K2 to “the mountain of mountains” in 1979. He said that K2 is the most beautiful and dangerous of all the high peaks, and that an artist has made this mountain.

The Italian climber Fosco Maraini said that K2 is great, but challenging: “Just the bare bones of a name, all rock and ice and storm and abyss. It makes no attempt to sound human”.  All agree that K2 is not an amateur’s mountain. Even among experienced mountaineers, K2 is more than twice as deadly as Everest. Jim Curran tried to  compare his climbing on K2 with famous Munch painting ‘The Scream’ saying this: “K2 stands absolutely on its own. The approach is hard. The base camp feels like the moon. The mountain itself looks utterly impregnable, and there’s no easy way up the thing. And all this hits you between the eyes when you see it for the first time. It’s like that famous Munch painting. You know the one— The Scream? Except, of course, you’re the one doing the screaming.” The reason why I started to write this post is because I came over great lecture by Jennifer Jordan who wrote a book ‘Savage Summit’ and made a movie ‘Women of K2′, in which she is trying to tell a story about the first five women who climbed K2 and died either while descending or later in another expedition. This led to the legend that K2 carried a “curse on women” until 2004 when curse was broken by Edurne Pasaban. K2 has an uncrackable code.

I really believe in Bob’s quote ‘my feet is my only carriage’. If I asked Reinhold Messner about mountaineering gear, he would probably answered: tent, poles, ice axe, some food, feet and huge will to summit. He was the first man to solo Mt. Everest without oxygen, and the first to summit all fourteen Himalayan peaks higher than 8000 metres. He lost his seven toes and his brother Gunhter descending Nanga Parbat in 1970. I heard about this weirdo and his lifestyle just few months ago. Weird that no one told me about him earlier. He is just as much extraordinary as Lars Monsen or Arne Næss. I started to read Messner’s book ‘The Crystal Horizon’ yesterday, and today I feel like climbing ‘never rest’ in 2013. I sat in Calabria earlier today, and when G. came back from Spartacus , I said to him that I am climbing first Chimborazo and Ama Dablam , and then I’ll be ready to visit Himalaya, Tibet and Shekar Monastery. Anyway, Messner has an exceptional literary voice especially when he is writing about restlessness and oneness in our mad - materialistic world. ‘The crystal horizon’ needs to be read.