Climbing catastrophe as 9 perish on K-2

[Kevin Rooney]

Seems a chunk of ice started the disaster:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080803/wl_nm/pakistan_climbers_dc_7

 

[J.Dub]

Scary stuff.

There is a Connecticut team at K2 presently, but from the online news coverage it appears they were not affected. IIRC, they might actually be acclimatizing on Broad Peak currently, and then hitting K2 itself in the next week or so.

You can check them out at the following website:

http://www.k2tallmountain.com/

Click on "Team" and there's a link to their expedition blog.

 

[Nadine]

Terrible news.

 

[Frodo]

Horrible news...

That is one tough mountain. It has he highest summit to death ratio of any peak in the world, and sadly this statistic just went up...

 

[Jay H]

An article about an italian climber who got off the mtn:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080805/ts_nm/pakistan_climbers_dc;_ylt=AkImVs4oH8SneImgMGagYheOe8UF

Jay

 

[DougPaul]

More info:
http://www.k2climb.net/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7542164.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/

Doug

 

[dr_wu002]

It has he highest summit to death ratio of any peak in the world, and sadly this statistic just went up...

Not quite:
~20% chance of dying while climbing K2
~40% chance of dying while climbing Annapurna 1

Terrible to hear of any loss of life like this but I think the people knew the odds against them and understood the risks. A lot of us here have families and/or live fairly "normal" lives and probably can't fathom taking a risk like that, and for what? A peak? But for some people I think it's the way they live and the way they're happy. I'd be content with walking around the hills of the NE until I'm 80 but I get the feeling that a lot of the people that died recently on K2 would rather have it that way than live the life I live.

It becomes a different ethical issue when people take huge risks and then rescuers are hurt or die trying to save them. That doesn't appear to have happened in this situation.

I find this less sad and more people perishing while taking a huge risk living their life the way the wanted to.

-Dr. Wu

 

[DougPaul]

Terrible to hear of any loss of life like this but I think the people knew the odds against them and understood the risks. A lot of us here have families and/or live fairly "normal" lives and probably can't fathom taking a risk like that, and for what? A peak? But for some people I think it's the way they live and the way they're happy.

This is a reasonable logic chain for the (generally foreign) climbers. However, for the local Pakistanis, it is often just a job to support their families.

The same applies to the Sherpas of Tibet and Nepal. In some cases, the Sherpas take higher risks than the climbers*. In Nepal, some of the climbing fees go into an insurance fund to help the families of those killed while climbing.

I should note that some of the Sherpas become (self-motivated) climbers themselves--I presume this also happens with some of the Pakistanis too.

* For example, the most dangerous place on the normal (Western Cwm--South Col) route up Everest is the icefall on the Khumbu Glacier. The porters go through it many times carrying supplies, the climbers only a few times.

Doug

 

[dr_wu002]

This is a reasonable logic chain for the (generally foreign) climbers. However, for the local Pakistanis, it is often just a job to support their families.
Doug

Probably more than "just a job" because I doubt it's a job that any one of the general public could walk in to with some training.

There were a number of sherpas reported lost in this accident although the focus is usually on the foreign climbers. I wonder if 9 sherpas were lost in a freak accident on K2 (or Everest) would it make international headlines? I don't know. I hope I never know.

-Dr. Wu

 

[DougPaul]

Probably more than "just a job" because I doubt it's a job that any one of the general public could walk in to with some training.

Originally they were trained by the expeditions. Some now have access to local mountaineering schools. Either way it is a high-paying (but dangerous) job in what is otherwise a largely subsistence economy.

Various jobs are: (low altitude) porter, high altitude porter, assistant climber/guide, and some become full-fledged climbers/guides.

There were a number of sherpas reported lost in this accident although the focus is usually on the foreign climbers. I wonder if 9 sherpas were lost in a freak accident on K2 (or Everest) would it make international headlines? I don't know. I hope I never know.

We should note that Sherpas are an ethnic group native to the Solo Khumbu region which straddles the border of Nepal and Tibet. What makes them noteworthy in high-altitude mountaineering is that they have an adaptation to altitude (many live above 10K ft) which allows them to work very efficiently at altitude.

The word sherpa, seems to be increasingly used as a synonym for local mountain porter/guide. (An unfortunate usage, IMO.) A report says "two Nepalis, two Pakistani porters" died, thus two might have been Sherpas.

I'm sure that such accidents will be (and have been) reported in the specialized media, but I suspect that they are less likely to make the general media than such an accident involving outsiders.

Doug

 

[Darl58]

Horrible news...

That is one tough mountain. It has he highest summit to death ratio of any peak in the world, and sadly this statistic just went up...

I remember reading that it has the highest death ratio for women climbers. That many perished either on it or soon after climbing it. It is believed to have a curse for women climbers.

Good read: Savage Summit: The Life and Death of the First Women of K2

 

[DougPaul]

More info:
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/08/04/mountain-rescue.html

Doug

 

[DougPaul]

I remember reading that it has the highest death ratio for women climbers. That many perished either on it or soon after climbing it.

I haven't seen the stats, but some high-profile women climbers certainly have died there.

Doug

 

[Dr. Dasypodidae]

I remember reading that it has the highest death ratio for women climbers. That many perished either on it or soon after climbing it. It is believed to have a curse for women climbers.

Good read: Savage Summit: The Life and Death of the First Women of K2

I have a signed copy of Alison Hargreaves' own book from a slide lecture she gave the year before she died on K2 in 1995. There was a lot of controversy at the time for her leaving behind her husband and two children, but she had the right answer for her critics, I think (see link below).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alison_Hargreaves

 

[Dr. Dasypodidae]

Horrible news...

That is one tough mountain. It has he highest summit to death ratio of any peak in the world, and sadly this statistic just went up...

Both Annapurna (Ed Viesturs turned back a couple of times) and Nanga Parbat (Reinhold Messner lost his brother Gunther on a traverse) have (or had?) higher summit to death ratios, according to:

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/n...hallenge-a-mountaineer-can-face-13930633.html

But, I think that most of the 8000-meter peak completers would agree that K2 is technically the most difficult.

 

[J.Dub]

Both Annapurna (Ed Viesturs turned back a couple of times) and Nanga Parbat (Reinhold Messner lost his brother Gunther on a traverse) have (or had?) higher summit to death ratios, according to:

Yeah, I think I remember reading in Viesturs' book, or perhaps somewhere else, that Annapurna had something like a 1:2 death to summit ratio (excluding failed attempts). Boukreev was lost there in '97, the year after the Everest disaster.

Those are some sobering statistics, fer shure.

 

[B the Hiker]

This even made the front page of the New York Times today, which has a multimedia piece on it.

Chaos on "the Mountain that Invites Death"

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/06/world/asia/06ktwo.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

 

[B the Hiker]

NYT article on the whether the danger are worth it

From the Week In Review section:

The article is entitled, "Does Climbing Matter any More?"
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/weekinreview/10bowley.html?ref=weekinreview

 

[dr_wu002]

From the Week In Review section:

The article is entitled, "Does Climbing Matter any More?"
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/weekinreview/10bowley.html?ref=weekinreview

Garbage. I say, don't put rescuers at risk at all... but if you want to climb K2, even if you have a family and kids, that's between you and your spouse (family -- or yourself if you're unattached) and not up to the New York Times or any of the infantile moralizing by its readers (I can't believe they actually quote readers comments) to make that decision for you.

I'm not going to tell people that drive race cars that it's dumb and risky and they shouldn't do it. Why is anyone else -- even a fellow climber -- going to understand a climbers risks and why they take them. It's a personal issue. Just don't put anyone else in harms way (which this group did).

-Dr. Wu

 

[Dr. Dasypodidae]

"He said his own group lost time before reaching the summit at 7 p.m. on Friday, because they did not have the right equipment. 'I think we arrived late on the summit of K2 because the technical equipment was low quality,' he was quoted as saying by the Italian news agency ANSA."

Hmmm, presumably they had crampons and ice axes, but perhaps not enough ascending devices for the fixed ropes in the Bottleneck, which were eventually severed by the serac collapse during/before their descent, when some extra ice screws and/or snow pickets would have been nice to have.