We are safely back in base camp. Safely back from the summit. Safely back from a challenging descent. And safely packing barrels for the trip home. But the stories keep coming and we want to share them. The only problems: our last two laptops have died (I'm writing this on a borrowed unit) and we have a more pressing responsibility than the crafting of pithy phrases. Our team is still focused on the evacuation of Don, with his broken leg.

It seems as if Don sustained a fracture of his fibula, (but we won't know the true extent of the injuries, without first getting an x-ray). We are about 65 miles from the nearest road. A helicopter evacuation has been ordered. The bad weather system hanging over the range has the helicopters grounded, so we wait.

In the meantime Joel, Bruce and Chris Stensland will be racing down the trail, with a small team of porters carrying theirs and Don's personal gear. They may just beat Don to Skardu, where his helicopter will land. I'll be a few days behind, not trekking out until Don has flown.

Chris S will wait in Skardu for Don. Bruce and Joel will continue towards home. Joel is carrying over a dozen videotapes and will have plenty of stories ready to release during the first week of August. That is our goal: fresh content on the site within ten days. All of this will lead up to our next big event, the show on NBC this fall.

And the stories we want to tell: our epic ascent from camp to camp, fighting blinding snow storms, waist deep snow, howling winds and a steadily decreasing supply of food and fuel. We want to share the partnerships that formed, between teams and individuals. We want to capture summit day: one that started tragically (with the death of Nima Sherpa) and ended tragically (with the death of Stephano, the Italian climber). We want to share the finding of and rescue of "Taliban" the Czech climber [Libor Uher], spending the night with 4 of us crammed in a 3-person tent, with only three sleeping bags. We need to tell about the epic descent from C4, in a total whiteout, with Don leading two Italian climbers and one Iranian (and Bruce and I leading the last Italian and the Czech). We all fought for our lives, down slopes that could avalanche or simply end in a fatal fall. Above C3 is where Don, his crampons mysteriously gone missing from C4 and so left to descend without them, fell 100 feet, breaking his leg.

And while all the other stories are compelling, the truly amazing story is of Don breaking his leg at 23,000 feet, in a raging blizzard, surrounded by exhausted climbers, who seconds before were dependent upon him for their safety. It will take hours to write that story, especially since the facts are fragile and the twisting has already begun (some egos are being protected). Short on time, let me give you some facts: Don lowered himself, with very little assistance, from C3 to the end of the fixed ropes (about 500 feet from the bottom of the mountain). This must amount to 150 rappels. He pulled himself sideways over rocks and across patches of snow. Every time the ends of his bones twisted against themselves the pain stole his breath. But as long as there was a rope to pull himself along or lower down he could make slow progress. But where the ropes stopped, he was at a dead end. Just above C2, well past dark, the winds still howling, he came to a gap of twenty feet, with no rope. At least 6 climbers, exhausted from the descent, passed over him, refusing to cut a section of cord for him. Bruce finally arrived cutting the rope and helping Don reach C2. Things got worse. 4 climbers were already in one of the few standing tents. Don crawled in (bursting the seams of a 3 person tent). Inside was his sleeping bag, stuffed with another climber. Don asked for his bag: "Yesterday this was your bag. Tomorrow this will be your bag. But tonight this is my bag." They survived the night. But there was no water for Don.

The descent continues. I am coming from C3 with the Czech climber. Don continues to lower himself on the ropes. Hours tick by, the mountain wrapped in storm clouds. At C1, some porters who are working for the Italians arrive, giving Don some Coca Cola and taking his pack.

The Czechs have sent an advanced team to help us. Joseph and Colombo reach Don as Bruce, Taliban and I continue the sweep of the peak. We all come together a few hundred feet above the glacier. The tension of the descent is thick in the air, but the relief of seeing help cuts through it. We are the last people on K2. We slowly lower ourselves to the moraine, where 4 more Czech climbers have turned the epic descent into a party.

Don, Chris Stensland and I spent the night at ABC. It was still cold and wet. A foggy dawn brought 35 climbers and kitchen staff from base camp. It was an amazing site: after so many days on the edge of survival, wondering where you find the strength to keep fighting, to see so many people, dressed in colorful clothes, come tromping up the moraine to ABC. The calvary had literally arrived. We had won the battle.

I want to take plenty of time to think through the events of the summit push and the descent. I seem to always come away from these experiences with a lot of questions and mixed emotions. When you witness such tragedy (10% of your comrades dying in one day) it shakes you up. And when you work so closely with Russian and Portuguese climbers, Italians and Koreans, Iranians and Czechs, towards such a powerful goal, it is uplifting. And when you witness the insensitivity and selfishness that human beings, at the very end of their survival tether, sometimes lapse into, it is depressing. But when you witness men like Don Bowie, lowering himself for thousands and thousands of vertical feet, in an Old Testament-style tempest, you become convinced that the human spirit burns brightly and beautifully. And if some day you are so blessed to spend time with Taliban, the Czech climber, you will experience a man who knows that honor, integrity and humility is best learned by first dying, then being brought back to life by strangers who plucked you from a mountain side, bathed you in love and warmth, and slowly lead you back to the ones you love.

It is time to get home.

Chris Warner

[Ed. Note: Due to an unanticipated confluence of technical difficulties, this dispatch was intended for publication on Tuesday, July 24, 2007. All Images Courtesy Libor Uher, Czech BP/K2 Website .]  

Additional information from Don Bowie's dispatches (www.donbowie.net) and family:

Don was seen by an orthopedic surgeon who happened to be visiting Base Camp. A preliminary diagnosis suggests that Don may have broken his fibula, a bone in his lower leg. It is uncertain whether he needs surgery or not.

Since removing his climbing boots, Don has been in severe pain and has required assistance to move about. Chris Warner and others helped Don relocate to Broad Peak's Base Camp where he was expecting a helicopter evacuation to Skardu. Due to poor weather it was believed that the earliest opportunity was Saturday, July 28th, 2007.

As always, things move slowly but change quickly! Earlier today, Thursday 26th, 2007, the unexpected happened - Don found himself swept away by the extraordinary generosity of 20 enthusiastic helpers. They came running to bid Don farewell and help him board the "premature" arrival of the helicopter. Don, reporting from a hotel in Skardu, is believed to have exclaimed, "It was crazy. I grabbed a few essentials and left my pitched tent and its contents behind. People were fighting to board the chopper. One climber was apparently thrown off after ignoring orders to disembark. There were a lot of desperate people out there!"  -RA

[Ed. Note: Don is expected back in the US Monday, July 30, 2007]