The tent where we slept at night in camp I was downhill with two stairs, so we were 40cm apart from each other. I had spent the other three nights on this small balcony at the edge of Abruzzi (camp I 6.050m) which offers a beautiful view, looking north and east but the lower mountains that are heavily snowed by the relentless winter of Karakoram. But I had never looked up, that is, west, to see what was waiting for us, what we had to climb.

 

I did not do it because the previous three days I spent the night here the weather was closed and the dense gray-black clouds prevented visibility upwards. Now the weather is clear, but the cold does not stop stinging if you take off your gloves for even a few seconds in order to have better adhesion to something you catch.

 

In a few seconds it hurts so much that even if you still put on your gloves again you need three times as much time as you were without gloves until you start to assemble,

in such a simple and normal movement the risk of frostbite is great. Looking up again now, rocks and peaks rise above us mixed with ice and some pieces of icefeld and all this together compose this hard, unknown to me landscape (first time in K2) so that you can not discern exactly where is camp II.

 

Climbing on slopes begins, I immediately follow the fixed ropes, which are not the same, differ in thickness and color, there are several from previous years. Every time I reach a relay I pull, shake I would say better the following available in order to find out which is the strongest the newest and the least worn or tattered.

 

You know when you climb rope company you have control in your hands. Your ability to climb, to place fuses, offers you the absolute confidence from your own movements from your own ability but also from your rope partner. Here it seems to be easier to climb since you pull the ropes with the zoomar, but it is much, much more dangerous for a rope to come off or be cut, especially now in winter. Today here I climb with my soul in my mouth, every now and then I think that some rope will leave, it will come off, it will be cut.

 

There are times when I imagine what will happen in such a case. I'm not ashamed to say it because I thought about it and I never write something I did not feel or something I did not think, looking down at the chaos I start thinking about my 8 month old granddaughter Iris and it crosses my mind that if that happens she will not know me she will never understand me in her life. I may not have had so many negative thoughts on a mountain before, like here. , compose the continuation of the fragile and precarious field. Stones fall from above by those in front. "Rocssss" you hear from above, it is the word, the sound that advises you to be careful, to look up to see if a stone is coming at you or to kiss the slope and to pray to be lucky so that the stones do not hit you.

 

There are times when I imagine what will happen in such a case. I'm not ashamed to say it because I thought about it and I never write something I did not feel or something I did not think, looking down at the chaos I start thinking about my 8 month old granddaughter Iris and it crosses my mind that if this happens Endless uphill, in always the same field, after 4.5 hours and after passing one last fairly upright, dangerous, rocky passage I see camp II (6,600m). Here we place our tent, we tie it with many ropes because it is on a rocky eyebrow that on both sides loses the chaos and the width of the eyebrow just fits the tent. Behind us, if you reach out, the Chimney starts and then above is the well-known Black Pyramid spot.

 

We sleep in the tent of the two people me and two Sherpa who were there as there is no space to place another tent. There are two more scenes, one with the two Americans and the other with Ali the Pakistani and John the Icelander where Mattia slept. The night was difficult, 6,600m altitude, but also because I am on the side of the stage and not in waist and so I rest her icy cloth at -31c.

 

 

Everyone decided to return to Bc, for me it was the 6th night over 6,000m (satisfactory acclimatization) but I wanted to cross the chimney and then return to BC. But I was completely alone and decided to go back to BC. The return was just as difficult and strange with plenty of small stones falling on me, just before camp I a large stone hit me in my right arm and opened a big hole in my

my feather outfit.

 

Fortunately, the thick feather mattress acted as a decompressor of the stone's strength. Arriving at camp I, the beautiful and always smiling Tamara, as she is versatile, takes my handkerchief and ties my arm so that I stop losing feathers. It is 4 in the afternoon and we start for ABC me, Tamara and the nicest Alex from Romania. Behind us come the Chilean JP and our leader the Spaniard Sergio. I start rapping, I am always so careful, my satellite phone rings, I stop answering because I know he is my son and I really want to know if the Nepalese reached the top, I lose a lot of time there and I can not talk to him. I continue slowly, while lower down I see Tamara and Alex moving for ABC. The phone rings again, I decide to stop on the balcony of the Japanese to talk quietly there and not hanging on the ropes. I arrive and immediately behind me I see the excellent photographer man and climber Oswald Rodrigo Pereira who is photographing me and I immediately grab the satellite and call my son who tells me: “Dad, the Nepalese stopped ten meters before the top for the others to go up together ". "Yes, Yupiii, they did it," I say to Oswald in front of me. At the same time I look back at the huge icy eastern slope and…. a long crawling noise comes, a hum is heard and it grows, I see two small objects rolling on the right slope and behind a climber body falling, bringing bumps, beating endlessly on the icy slope, the speed it has developed is terribly high. "Oh my God, my God", I freeze !! At the same time my satellite phone is still in my ear and back in Greece my son is listening to all this. "Mattia is, no go ..go ..because…" ..

 

He is wearing a red suit and I imagine it is Mattia.

Osvaldo kicks the ball away from the goal.

At that moment Jp arrives and I tell him "Mattia and that". He also leaves the ball down, I call Dawa on the radio,

"Dawa this and this happen"

"Calm down Antonio, calm down" !!

"What color suit are you wearing?" he asks me, I answer "red,

it's probably Mattia, "I tell him.

"Okay, go down Antonio, go down now and keep me informed to see what I do."

 

I start rapping in a hurry, but I always pay attention, now I miss one of my grabons, I care a little because in fact the grabbon stays on my leg but I lose the front brace that holds it in my boot when the grappon no longer works. Now, I hear from the radio Alex saying to our common network "I am

above it "it's not Mattia it's Sergio". "Sergio?" I wonder. I continue and hear from Alex: "he is crippled but he lives, he breathes a little,

send a helicopter now "he continues. Dawa begins contacts with the Pakistani army (there are no private companies flying only army helicopters). Now I hear Alex say on the radio: "Sergio, please stay with us please we are all here for you".

 

I finally arrive and I stand there on top of him I see his face I do not want and I can not describe to you more about how he was but I remember, exactly the same picture, when I was with Popi in the Alps de Ecrins, in 2018, in France, when two French girls tied ropes slipped and fell, fell on the icy slope, passed by us with great speed and passed through the balconies of the seraks and we from above saw their crazy course down. Then I was one of the first to get close to the two girls and the picture was the same as that of our beloved Sergi. Then 7 helicopters came one after the other and collected the victims and the friends of the girls. It's a story I never made public because any help I wanted was kept secret.

 

But I do it now at this given moment because it came to my mind and I want to share it with you.