Sixty-four years later, writer Matthew Power and photographer Bobby Model retrace one of climbing's most extraordinary escapades. Photograph by Bobby Model
This is the summit of Batian, 17,058 feet [5,199 meters]. Alex Fiksman and I are standing on the actual summit, which is about the size of a card table. It drops away pretty steeply on all sides.
To arrive here, we had climbed for almost 17 hours. This is six o'clock at night, and it's about to get dark very fast. We still had to cross The Gates of the Mist, which is this snow bridge between Batian and Nelion. On the top, there was a very small shelter in which we wanted to sleep. We really didn't want to have to sleep out over night at 17,000 feet [5,182 meters] with no shelter, so we only stayed here for a few minutes. —Contributing Editor Matthew Power
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