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Today a hickory ice axe hangs in a museum in Golden, Colorado. On August 10, 1953, the lives of six men hung on it. Pete Schoening, 26, from Seattle, had jammed it in behind a boulder frozen into the slope. Then his companions fell. On a rope, no one can check whether the person belaying is ready. You simply hang from him. That is why this story speaks so clearly to the Team Principle of Reliability: teamwork begins where everyone can rely on everyone else without having to check.
Eight Men, No Safety Net
Situation
In 1953 an American expedition led by Charles Houston attempts the first ascent of K2 in the Karakoram. There are eight climbers: Houston, Robert Bates, the nuclear physicist George Bell, Robert Craig, the geologist Art Gilkey, the geologist and painter Dee Molenaar, Pete Schoening and the British officer Tony Streather. The expedition is small and lightweight. It has no high-altitude porters and no bottled oxygen. Its budget is $32,000. On August 2 the whole team is assembled at Camp VIII, at about 7,800 meters. Then a storm pins the men down for days.
Connection to the team principle
Anyone climbing this way has no backup except the other seven. There is no one to supervise and no one to step in. Research puts it in sober terms: a meta-analysis of 112 studies by Bart A. De Jong, Kurt T. Dirks and Nicole Gillespie shows a link between trust within a team and team performance. The link is stronger where members depend heavily on one another to get their work done (high task interdependence). And it is hard to imagine depending on one another more than on a rope on K2.
No One Gets Left Behind
Situation
On August 7 Art Gilkey collapses outside the tent. Houston, who is a physician, diagnoses a blood clot in his leg. Signs of a pulmonary embolism follow. Gilkey can no longer walk. According to the climbers’ own accounts, leaving him behind is never considered. On August 10 the descent begins in the storm. The men wrap Gilkey in a sleeping bag and a piece of tent canvas and lower him on the rope.
Connection to the team principle
This shows the first side of reliability. The summit is lost, and descending with a helpless man is life-threatening. Even so, the question is never up for debate. Gilkey doesn’t have to ask, and he doesn’t have to hope. He can rely on it. A team that has to debate that question has already lost the principle.
The Fall
Situation
On August 10 the men are traversing a slope of hard ice. George Bell slips and pulls his rope partner Tony Streather with him. Their rope tangles with those of Houston, Bates and Molenaar. Five men fall, and their weight yanks at the rope that also holds the helpless Gilkey. Below them the slope drops some 2,000 meters to the glacier. At that moment Pete Schoening is belaying Gilkey and Molenaar. He has the rope wrapped around his ice axe and his body. He holds all six. The nylon rope, still new technology at the time, stretches a great deal, but it does not break.
Connection to the team principle
Schoening had set up his belay before anything happened. That is the heart of it. He later described what he did as a practiced, almost mechanical move. Reliability here is not a heroic act in the moment. It is care taken in advance. The others had not checked how his axe was placed. They didn’t have to.
The Brotherhood of the Rope
Situation
Bell has frostbitten feet, Houston a concussion. The men anchor Gilkey to the slope and set up an emergency camp. When Bates and Streather go back for him, he is gone. A groove in the snow points to an avalanche. Exactly what happened remains unclear to this day. The others reach base camp after five more days. There they build a cairn for Gilkey. His remains are found in 1993. Bates later coins the phrase “the brotherhood of the rope.” The survivors stay connected for decades. In 1981 the American Alpine Club honors them with the David A. Sowles Memorial Award. Schoening dies in 2004 at the age of 77. In 2006, 28 children and grandchildren of the men he saved gather for a reunion.
Connection to the team principle
The expedition did not reach its goal, and it lost a man. Yet many regard it as a model. The reason is not the summit but what the men were to one another. Reliability binds people longer than success does.
Key takeaways
Key Lessons
- Set up your “belay” before anything happens. You are reliable because of what you have prepared – not because of what you improvise when it counts.
- Practice what matters until it becomes second nature. Schoening didn’t have to think.
- In calm times, agree on what is non-negotiable in your team. On K2 it was this: no one gets left behind.
- Ask yourself: Who is hanging on my rope right now without being able to see how I’m anchored?
- Don’t judge your team by results alone. Also ask whether you still want to work together after a failure.
Summary
On K2 in 1953, one man with a wooden ice axe held six others. He could do it because he was prepared before the first man slipped. His companions had not checked; on a rope you can’t. The Team Principle of Reliability describes exactly this situation: teamwork begins where everyone can rely on everyone else without having to check. And it shows even earlier – in how naturally the team refused to leave the sick Art Gilkey behind.