High Altitude Leadership: What the World's Most Forbidding Peaks Teach Us About Success

Chapter 8. Danger #8 GRAVITY

We can lick gravity, but the paperwork's a bit tougher.

—Werner von Braun, rocket scientist

Location: K2, Pakistan

The trek to K2's base camp follows a twisting valley for seven days and sixty-five miles. The trail starts at 7,000 feet and is hot and dusty as it leaves the last village. Traveling with us are 120 porters, each carrying fifty-five pounds of expedition equipment and food. We have supplies to last us for seventy days. Twenty-five miles (and three days) into the journey, we leave the hot trails and step onto the Baltoro Glacier, one of the longest glaciers in the world. Beneath our feet, the ice varies in thickness from 600 to 1,200 feet. And all of this ice is slowly sliding down valley.

Glaciers move with ...