Mourning for German mountaineer Laura Dahlmeier

Laura Dahlmeier while rock climbing
Laura Dahlmeier (1993-2025)

It is always difficult to face such a definitive truth as the death of a person. But it does not help to close one’s eyes to it. According to human judgment, German mountaineer Laura Dahlmeier cannot have survived Monday’s mountain accident on the 6,096-meter-high Laila Peak in the Karakoram.

Two days later, the 31-year-old was declared dead and the rescue operation on the extremely steep and dangerous mountain was called off.

“Recovering the body is too risky and not feasible for the rescue team under the current difficult conditions with rockfalls and a change in weather on Laila Peak,” Laura Dahlmeier’s management informed. In the meantime, further details of the accident have also become known.

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Breaking news: Laura Dahlmeier is dead

Butterlampen_Gebetsmuehlen
R.I.P.

What was feared has now sadly become a certainty. German mountaineer Laura Dahlmeier did not survive her accident on the 6,000-meter Laila Peak. This was announced by her management. The former Olympic biathlon champion and world champion was 31 years old.

She was struck by falling rocks on Monday on the mountain in the Karakoram in Pakistan at an altitude of 5,700 meters. Her rope partner was unharmed and was able to descend to base camp.

Mountain accident on Laila Peak in Pakistan: Great concern for former biathlon star Laura Dahlmeier

Laura Dahlmeier (climbing in the massif Wilder Kaiser in Austria)
Laura Dahlmeier (climbing in the massif Wilder Kaiser in Austria)

Laura Dahlmeier, one of the world’s best biathletes of the last decade, has suffered a serious accident on the 6,069-meter-high Laila Peak in the Karakoram in Pakistan. “Laura Dahlmeier was climbing in alpine style with her female rope partner on 28 July when she was hit by falling rocks. The accident happened around noon local time at an altitude of around 5,700 meters,” informed the 31-year-old German mountaineer’s management team. “She is very seriously injured, at the very least.”

“Her climbing partner immediately made an emergency call, and the rescue operation was launched straight away,” it said. Due to the “remoteness of the area,” a rescue helicopter did not reach the scene of the accident until Tuesday morning.

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Waiting for a good weather window on K2

K2, the second highest mountain on earth (in 2004)
K2, the second highest mountain on earth (in 2004)

The weather in the Karakoram is not making things easy for commercial expedition teams this summer season. First, extremely dry weather caused an increased risk of rockfall, and now snowfall is slowing the teams down. The teams have to be patient in their base camps at the foot of K2 (8,611 m) and Broad Peak (8,051 m).

No summit successes have been reported from either of the two eight-thousanders this summer. A brief window of good weather may open up over the weekend, making summit attempts possible.

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Alexander Huber, Dani Arnold and Simon Gietl: New route on the 6,000er Jirishanca in Peru

Dani Arnold, Alexander Huber, and Simon Gietl (from left to right)
Dani Arnold, Alexander Huber, and Simon Gietl (from left to right)

While the mountaineering community has recently been focusing its attention on the high mountains of Pakistan, three top European climbers have achieved an alpinistic masterpiece in the Peruvian Andes.

Alexander Huber (54, the younger of the two Huber brothers) from Germany, Dani Arnold (41) from Switzerland, and Simon Gietl (40) from South Tyrol opened a new route on the 6,094-meter-high Jirishanca. Their line runs 1,030 meters up the challenging East Face and ends at the East Summit at 6,028 meters.

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Denis Urubko and Maria Cardell report: New route on Nanga Parbat

The Diamir sde fo Nanga Parbat
The Diamir side of Nanga Parbat

“On 10 July at 11:30 a.m. local time, we stood on the summit of Nanga Parbat after climbing it via a new route in alpine style,” Denis Urubko wrote yesterday to the Russian mountaineering portal mountain.ru. “Maria and I are happy.”

Urubko and his Spanish wife Maria “Pipi” Cardell had already travelled to Pakistan at the beginning of June to acclimatize for their project on the 8,125-meter-high Nanga Parbat. Their goal: a new route through the Diamir Face, the western flank of the ninth highest mountain on earth. In alpine style, i.e. without bottled oxygen, without fixed ropes, without fixed high camps and without high altitude porters.

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Dry, drier, Karakoram

The eight-thousander Broad Peak in Pakistan (in 2004)

“Two days ago, above base camp, Ismail Akbarov from Azerbaijan was hit by a stone. This was his first ascent, and it also marked the end of his expedition. The impact damaged his tibia so that he had to be flown by helicopter to Skardu,” wrote Lukasz Supergan from Poland, who is attempting the 8,051-meter-high Broad Peak in the Karakoram in Pakistan this summer, on Instagram yesterday. He himself decided to start in the middle of the night rather than in the morning so as not to kick rocks loose and endanger those climbing below him.

Not only from Broad Peak, but also frp, neighboring K2 and the other eight-thousanders in Pakistan, Gasherbrum I, Gasherbrum II and Nanga Parbat, exceptionally dry conditions on the mountain are currently reported, accompanied by an increased risk of falling rocks. The usual precipitation has largely failed to materialize so far. Nevertheless, light snowfall is expected in the Karakoram in the coming days.

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Klara Kolouchova dies on Nanga Parbat – Horia Colibasanu reaches the summit without breathing mask

Klara Kolouchova (2019 on K2)
Klara Kolouchova (1978-2025)

Mourning for Klara Kolouchova. The 46-year-old Czech woman fell to her death on Nanga Parbat on Thursday. “An experienced mountaineer, she fell while descending above Camp 2. She was accompanied by her Sherpa, Taraman Tamang, when she slipped on a rocky section of the mountain,” the Nepalese expedition operator Seven Summit Treks (SST) announced on Instagram.

Kolouchova was the first Czech woman to scale the three highest mountains in the world, Mount Everest (in 2007), K2 (2019) and Kangchenjunga (2019) – in commercial teams, with bottled oxygen. She has also stood on the summits of the eight-thousanders Cho Oyu (2006) and Annapurna I (2024).

Last summer, she failed on Nanga Parbat. Due to the difficult conditions, the end of the line was reached in Camp 2 at around 6,200 meters. “Last year, the ‘Naked Mountain’ (translation of Nanga Parbat) stripped me to the bone,” she wrote in her last Facebook post on June 16. “This year, we want to climb to the summit.” Her husband was also part of the team.

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David Göttler after success on Nanga Parbat: “Highlight of my mountaineering career”

David Göttler (r.) with French ski mountaineers Tiphaine Duperier (l.) and Boris Langenstein on the summit of Nanga Parbat
David Göttler (r.) with French ski mountaineers Tiphaine Duperier (l.) and Boris Langenstein on the summit of Nanga Parbat

Even after returning to his home in Spain, David Göttler still seems to be floating on cloud nine. “It will probably take a month before the euphoria subsides and I can realize it all,” the 46-year-old German climber tells me.

On Tuesday last week, Göttler – together with French female climber Tiphaine Duperier and her compatriot Boris Langenstein – scaled the 8,125-meter-high Nanga Parbat in Pakistan.

It was only the eighth ascent of the mountain via the challenging Schell route. An Austrian expedition led by Hanns Schell first climbed this route to the summit of Nanga Parbat in 1976. It leads via a pillar on the left side of the Rupal flank to the almost 7,000-meter-high col between the Mazeno Ridge and the Southwest Ridge. At 7,400 meters, the route changes to the Diamir side.

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