Ep.4 - The return

If the climb was exhausting, the descent is long and even more dangerous. The Italian expedition finally leaves K2 and the base camp and soon discovers that the entire world is celebrating them as heroes. Their return to Italy is a triumphant celebration: all Italians are suddenly experts on mountain climbing, while books and movies about the climb are wildly successful. Seventy years later, K2 remains a legendary tale for all mountain climbers, and inspires hundreds of people each year to attempt the climb.

The men setting off for the expedition are expert mountaineers, but climbing an eight-thousander is like going to another planet. The thin air makes everything different: in order to succeed the eleven climbers and the rest of their team need to do some serious training. While they’re getting ready, the expedition-leader Ardito Desio is travelling all over Italy for the best equipment which will bring the team to the summit, in absolute safety. Or, at least, in the safest way possible, because the mountain is always dangerous. This realization hits the team hard, when one of the members dies while setting up the camps on K2.

Alone, in the dark, in one of the most dangerous places of the planet. Shortly after completing the climb, Achille Compagnoni and Lino Lacedelli start to make their way back down towards the base camp: they stumble, they fall, they slide. They lose part of their technical equipment and their flashlight even goes out. And yet, somehow they manage to make their way out alive from that which is known as the “Death Zone” and back to their companions at the base camp: they’re safe. It’s the arrival point of an endeavor which the expedition leader has been organizing for an entire year; and that started with searching for funds, then continued with the diplomatic relations of the Italian President of the Council Alcide de Gasperi, and was later made possible with the full support of the most advanced Italian technology companies.

When they make it to the top of K2, Achille Compagnoni and Lino Lacedelli are the first people to set foot on the second highest peak in the world. They take pictures, they raise a flag, but they don’t have the time to celebrate, as they must immediately set off again to return to the base camp. K2 is a treacherous mountain, and many expeditions have attempted and failed to climb it: the Italian expedition succeeds thanks to the skills of its climbers and unprecedented technical support.

On July 31 1954, two Italian mountaineers reach the peak of K2, the second tallest mountain on Earth. These two men are Lino Lacedelli and Achille Compagnoni: they’re the first to succeed in the endeavor. Seventy years later, this podcast tells the story of their climb and the support they received from an entire nation.