Jack Lawrence

The landscape is brutal but beautiful at the same time.

Endless ice, grey rock, snow that never truly melts, the wind cuts straight through your clothing.

And when it dies down, the silence feels almost unsettling.

There's no life here, no trees, no birds, just the mountain watching.

As climbers move higher, the conditions only worsen.

Temperatures plunge well below freezing.

Oxygen levels drop to a point where simple tasks like tying a knot or zipping up your jacket become exhausting.

Your thoughts slow and mistakes become easier to make.

And on a mountain like K2, mistakes are rarely survivable.

This isn't a place that allows hesitation or weakness or bad luck.

It's known among climbers as the Savage Mountain, a reputation earned through decades of avalanches, southern storms and routes that offer almost no margin for error.

It's a dangerous place to be.

Many have died.

and this was the mountain that Michael's brother Peter was planning to conquer.

However, before K2, they would tackle another mountain, a less extreme one, a mountain designed for acclimatisation.

However, while on that ridge, they hit a problem.

Greg Child is an Australian-born American who would go on to write a book called Mixed Emotions, Mountaineering Writings of Greg Child, where he documents many of his climbing expeditions and the loss of friends, including the death of Michael's brother Peter.

At this point in time, however, he was utterly exhausted from bringing his friend single-handedly down the mountain, alive but extremely unwell.

Peter is placed into a sleeping bag in a tent.

Come morning, he wakes up and asks for a drink.