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Maria Coffey – Explorers of the Infinite

1985, the Spanish mountaineer Carlos Carsolio was climbing Nanga Parbat with a Polish team, attempting the south spur of the Rupal Face, the biggest mountain wall in the world. Conditions were dreadful, with blizzards so dense that often the men lost sight of each other.

Through the ascent they communicated by two-way radio, and their conversations were recorded by people at Base Camp.

Before they reached the top of the face, their food and fuel ran out.  During their desperate descent, they all felt very close to death.

Back at Base Camp, as they recovered from the ordeal, they listened to the recordings of their conversations. They were shocked.

The Polish climbers spoke no Spanish and Carsolio spoke no Polish, so normally they conversed in English. During the final part of their ascent, however, and on the way down the mountain, they had all been speaking in their native languages. Listening to the tapes, the Poles couldn't understand Carsolio and he couldn't understand them.

‘But when we were up there we had understood each other perfectly,' says Carsolio. 'We had opened some channels, to another level of communication.’