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K2 update: 17 summits today, climbers arriving back in C4, Sherpa lost at the Bottleneck. BP note - Georg finds brother
12:26 pm CDT Jul 20, 2007
(K2Climb.net) “One of the Sherpas climbing with the Korean team fell to his death from the Bottleneck to the rocks below, according to Kuban expedition’s website,” Lena from Russian Climb told ExplorersWeb. “He had set off from C4 2 hours before the Russian team.”
Sherpa lost before dawn
"The perished Sherpa worked with the Korean men's team," Portuguese Aurelio Faria, accompanying Joao Garcia, confirmed from BC. "He slipped on the way up - it was still dark - and fell. Another Sherpa and an Italian climber tried to grab him, but couldn't stop him from falling hundreds of meters down the south face." The Korean team's website confirmed the accident.
Both Joao and the Kuban team’s summiteers are already back in C4 – or, in the Russians' case, in their snow cave.
Russians sleeping in a snow cave
At arrival at C4’s location on the way up, the Russian climbers couldn’t find a trace of their tent. Digging in the snow they found it completely flattened, but at least the gear inside was intact. Therefore, the men kept on shoveling in order to do a snow cave - where they are currently spending the night.
Czech Libor Uher, the only climber who summited from the SSE Spur (Cesen) route, is also back in C4. So are the SharedSummits climbers on the Abruzzi route.
A dangerous place
K2 is dubbed The Mountaineers' Mountain for good reason: K2's files on AdventureStats (updated today) register 269 summits, and 65 casualties, setting the death to summit rate on 24%. 23 of the mortal accidents on the mountain were due to climbers falling, a much larger number than those (13) who died in avalanches.
Check out K2 summit stats here...
... and K2 fatalities stats here.
17 Friday summits
There are 17 confirmed summits on K2 today. Russians Nikolay Kadoshnikov, Victor Afanasyev, Aleksander Eliseev, and Roman Gubanov were the first to top-out, at about 3.30 p.m., local time. Americans Chris Warner and Bruce Normand, and Portuguese Joao Garcia followed, with Don Bowie arriving at 4:45 p.m., approximately at the same time that Czech Libor Uher, one Korean woman and two Sherpas, one Korean man, Iranian Kazem Faridian, Italians Daniele Nardi, Mario Vielmo & Stefano Zavka. All except for Libor climbed via the Abruzzi (SE) Spur.
Hugues back: "Oh, the horrible wind"
Meanwhile, French Hugues d’Aubarede is back in BC, after turning back from C4 earlier today. “It was too cold, too tough, and the wind too strong… Oh, I wish I were capable of describing accurately the horrible wind…,” he told his home team in a call mid-way down. Hugues said he was forced back as he couldn't feel his feet (that he already had surgery done to after previous frostbites) in the bitter cold.
Broad Peak: Markus' body found
As for Broad Peak, Georg Kronthaler has found the remains of his brother Markus near the foresummit. Georg’s team, using supplementary O2 in order to save strength, are next lowering down Markus’ body and taking him home for a proper burial.
News is still expected on several teams whose members could have reached the summit today as well, in spite of strong winds.
Expedition links:
K2/Broad Peak:
Warner & Bowie Shared Summits | Donbowie.net/ | Gerfried Goeschl (German) | Czech BP/K2 (Czech) | Russian K2 Direct West Face updates on RussianClimb | Russian K2 Direct West Face site (Russian) | Broadpeak.at | Hungarian K2/GI expedition's news (Hungarian) | Joao Garcia K2 expedition's blog (Portuguese) | Zdenek Hruby's report on Radek's website(Czech) | Kuban BP & K2 expedition (Russian)| Pompili's blog (Italian) | K2 Freedom 2007's news (Italian) | Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner(German) | Ralf's Amical (German)| Silvio Mondinelli's BP news (Italian) Marco Confortola (Italian) | Ivan Vallejo (Spanish) | Edurne Pasaban's BP news (Spanish) | Mexicans Badia & Mauricio (Spanish) | Jorge Salazar's Veracruz al Himalaya (Spanish) | Santiago Quintero (Spanish) | Nicholas Rice's BP dispatches | Fernando Gonzalez (Spanish) | Georg Kronthaler (German) | News on Iranian climbers on Damavand Club's blog (Farsi) | Piotr Morawski (Polish) | Peter Hamor (Slovak) | Dodo Kopold
Gasherbrums:
FTA's Gasherbrum dispatches | Project-Himalaya's Gasherbrum II dispatches | Alex Gavan's GI & GII expedition website | Hiro Takeuchi's blog (Japanese) | Slovak GI/GII expedition website (Slovak) | Valles al GII (Catalan) | Mario Merelli GI's news(Italian) | Jean Troillet (news in French) | Mike Horn's website| Mountain Madness | Kari Kobler (German) | Carlos Pauner's reports (Spanish)
Nanga Parbat:
Chilean Nanga Parbat 2007 website (Spanish) | Chilean Nanga Parbat 2007 blog (Spanish) | Chilean USACH team | Jean-Noel Urban (French)
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