When Nicholas Rice awoke just before midnight July 31, he was confident that the next day he would stand on the summit of K2, the world's second-highest mountain and the most challenging to climb.
The forecast was for good weather, and after some earlier health issues, Rice was feeling strong. The 23-year-old climber from Hermosa Beach planned to climb K2 as he had other Himalayan peaks, alone and without supplemental oxygen.
In his tent at Camp 4, a staging ground for summit attempts located 8,000 meters up the mountain in the so-called "death zone," he began the tedious job of melting snow on a small stove. He knew it would take more than an hour to melt the two liters he would need for his climb, but just as he had finished melting the first panful of water, he spilled it, soaking his socks and delaying his start for two hours.
The delay probably saved his life.
That afternoon, 11 climbers who started for the K2 summit ahead of Rice died on the mountain in one of the deadliest days in mountaineering history.
Rice had hoped to begin his push for the summit about 2 a.m. But because of the spill he did not leave his tent until nearly 4:30. An hour into the climb, he began to worry about frostbite.
"I knew in the back of my mind that I might not have enough time to summit because I was starting so late," he said in an interview from K2 base camp in Pakistan on Wednesday. "Then, when my hands just wouldn't warm up, I decided to turn back and try again the next day. . . . K2 is already the hardest mountain to climb in the world. You don't need any added difficulties."
Back at Camp 4, as he and other climbers were talking, an Italian watching the peak shouted "accident!" and gestured toward a steep section of the mountain known as the Bottleneck. Someone had fallen from the ropes, and it appeared that another climber was attempting to help.
Rice and the others began planning a rescue, radioing to camps lower on the mountain where climbers wouldn't be as debilitated as those already in the death zone, where much thinner air quickly depletes muscle strength, stamina and mental functioning.
But they soon learned over the radio that the man who fell, a Serbian, as well as a porter who had tried to rescue him, were dead. At that point, Rice decided to head down the mountain.
"Someone had just died on the route I was attempting to climb," he said. "Clearly the ropes weren't fixed correctly, and I wasn't going to risk that."
