Leadership in the death zone on K2

By: Gareth Keane (WG '10) Staff Writer

Posted: 4/20/09

Once a mountaineer climbs over 7,000m they enter the death zone - at these altitudes the human body uses up its store of oxygen faster than it can be replenished. Staying this high without some form of supplementary oxygen will eventually result in death.

Chris Warner is no stranger to the death zone, having visited it many times during his mountaineering career. He has summited many of the world's highest peaks, including Everest and K2. Chris is also a founder and director of Earth Treks Inc., a professional climbing guide service specializing in rock and ice climbing instruction and international mountaineering expeditions since 1990.

Both Chris and Earth Treks Inc. are familiar to many Wharton students and alumni as the company has been a partner in many of Wharton's Leadership Ventures over the last few years. Chris was kind enough to come to Wharton and talk about some of his experiences in early April, sharing stories about his career and in particular his successful ascent of K2 in 2007. He provided a standing-room only crowd in SHDH 350 with some insights into leadership and teamwork in some of the most extreme conditions anyone could ever encounter.

Chris began by setting the stage, providing insights into his successful ascents of Everest and describing how commercial guides and large expeditions have made climbing this mountain almost routine. In terms of mountaineering, other peaks offer far more technical challenges and a much greater sense of personal reward. In order to illustrate his point, Chris introduced the audience to an interesting ratio that compares successful summit attempts to deaths for a particular mountain. This ratio is just under 2% for Everest, but stands at close to 30% for K2 by comparison.

Having set the scene for why K2 is much more of a challenge, Chris described how he had attempted to climb the mountain a number of times but had been stymied by bad luck, bad weather and accidents. K2 was almost developing into an obsession with him, and when he found himself with an old 1930's photograph of what appeared to be a possible new route on the mountain he knew he had to go back.

He shared with the audience the preparation and fundraising required to climb the mountain, which quickly took on a life of its own. Almost by accident he found himself pitching a documentary on the expedition to NBC, and ended up with a camera but no camera crew. His contacts got him sponsorship commitments from various CEOs, but he found that their CFOs cut his funding to the bone.

Chris eventually found himself on K2, climbing with a team he trusted and that worked well together. After many weeks of trying to climb the new route he had hoped would lead to the summit, the team discovered that this route was not feasible and had to set its sights on the standard route to the top used by most climbing teams.

The climbing season on K2 is short, and already there were a number of other expeditions working on climbing the route. This is where Chris' talk developed into reflections on teamwork and leadership as he illustrated how decisions made by some individuals and climbing teams led to severe consequences.

The process of ferrying supplies up the mountain requires many hours of back breaking work. Each team trying for the summit had a different approach, ranging from the self sufficiency of Chris' team through the light-weight approach of a group of Italians to the sherpasupported siege-style approach of the Korean teams.

As the teams placed their camps on the mountain the weather became an issue. Time was running out, and eventually all the teams found themselves ready to make a summit bid before bad weather blew in and made climbing impossible.

Summit day on a high mountain is a long, drawn-out sufferfest. Climbers must leave in the middle of the night, and hope to summit and start back down before 2pm. Any climber who turns around later than this is making a very personal decision as the risk of fatality during the descent is very high.

Chris provided some incredible examples of how teams and leaders on K2 that year failed to function as they scrambled for personal glory and success. He described how his own team summited successfully, but then found themselves supporting other teams and weaker climbers who were either not able to cope with the mental and physical challenges, or who had not equipped themselves correctly. His team was able to get everyone they dealt with down the mountain successfully, but it was obvious that Chris feels deeply for the climbers who did not survive, and believes that their deaths were not necessary.

Chris concluded by providing a very interesting perspective - we all have K2s in our lives, goals that we set for ourselves. When tackling these goals, it is important to remember that our behavior drives the ultimate result - you may achieve your goal by compromising your values, but the result will not be as successful as it could be. Surrounding yourself with a team that shares your values, and stays true to those values, will make for a better outcome.