On Monday, she reached – with bottled oxygen – the summit of K2, the second-highest mountain on earth, as one of around 40 mountaineers from commercial expedition teams. Gülnur was the first Turkish woman to scale the 8,611-meter-high mountain in the Karakoram in Pakistan.
At that point, she probably had no idea how dangerous the final phase of her descent would be: from Camp 1 at around 6,000 meters down to the Advanced Base Camp (ABC) at around 5,300 meters. As reported, a Chinese climber died in a rockfall during this passage on Tuesday. Gülnur reports that a rescuer who tried to recover the Chinese woman’s body was also hit.
The 8,611-meter-high K2 in the Karakoram (in summer 2004)
On Monday, expedition operator Imagine Nepal proudly announced that its entire team of 15 members had reached the summit of K2, the second-highest mountain on earth. Now, a death has cast a shadow over the success.
According to consistent reports from Pakistan, a Chinese female climber from the team was hit by falling rocks yesterday, Tuesday, and died. The accident occurred between Camp 1 (at around 6,000 meters) and the Advanced Base Camp (5,300 m), it said.
The 8,611-meter-high K2 in the Karakoram (in 2004)
It took a long time, but now the moment has arrived. Today, the first more than two dozen summit successes of the summer season were reported from K2, the second highest mountain in the world, located in the Karakoram in Pakistan. The Nepalese expedition operator Imagine Nepal provided the largest group with 15 members at the summit.
The team was led by Mingma Gyalje Sherpa, the head of the company. For him, it was his sixth K2 summit success. Mingma and Imagine Nepal had taken on the task of fixing the ropes to the highest point at 8,611 meters.
Following the tragic death of German mountaineer Laura Dahlmeier on the 6,096-meter-high Laila Peak in the Karakoram in Pakistan, many are asking themselves: Should the body of the deceased be recovered after all? Or should her last will be respected?
Laura had written in her will that her body should remain on the mountain if others had to risk their lives to recover it.
This was exactly the case immediately after Dahlmeier’s death: the rockfall that had claimed Laura’s life at around 5,700 meters continued and would have posed a potentially fatal danger to the members of a recovery team.
And if conditions on the mountain improve? Even then, it would remain a dangerous undertaking, Dan Stretch of the US organization Global Rescue informs me.
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.
The eight-thousander Broad Peak (with the shadow of K2, photographed in 2004)
The uprising of the Pakistani tourism industry has been at least partially successful. The regional government of the Gilgit-Baltistan province has slightly reduced the higher prices for climbing permits for Pakistan’s highest mountains that were decided for this summer.
The Pakistan Association of Tour Operators (PATO) had filed a complaint against the original price increase. The PATO had argued that this was severely damaging mountain tourism in the country. The Gilgit-Baltistan Chief Court initially put the decision on hold. The new revised price list is now available.
K2, the second highest mountain on earth (in 2004)
The commercial mountaineering season in the Karakoram in Pakistan is over. The expedition operators have long been beating the drum for their offers for the coming fall in Nepal and Tibet. As in previous years, the eight-thousander Manaslu in western Nepal is likely to be particularly busy.
This mountain summer in Pakistan, most of the commercial teams gathered once again at the 8,611-meter-high K2. The “King of Eight-thousanders” was long considered too dangerous and challenging for commercial expeditions and was therefore reserved for the world’s best mountaineers. This has now changed radically. In summer, the second highest mountain on earth shares the same fate that has befallen the highest of all mountains, Mount Everest, in spring for many years: Full base camp, fixed ropes up to the summit, rubbish on the normal route, traffic jams at key points.
The 8,611-meter-high K2 in the Karakoram (in 2004)
Even if it is difficult, it makes no sense to turn a blind eye: Kazuya Hiraide and Kenro Nakajima paid for their adventure on K2, the second highest mountain on earth, with their lives. In consultation with the families of the two top Japanese climbers, the rescue operation on the second highest mountain on earth was halted yesterday – because the terrain where Hiraide and Nakajima had been located is too steep and too dangerous.
It was the project everyone whose heart beats for real alpinism was looking forward to this summer. The Japanese Kazuya Hiraide and Kenro Nakajima, who are among the best mountaineers in the world, had set out to climb the extremely challenging West Face of the 8611-meter-high K2 in the Karakoram in Pakistan – on a new route, in alpine style, i.e. without bottled oxygen, without high porters, without fixed camps and without fixed ropes. According to reports from Pakistan, Hiraide and Nakajima fell from an altitude of around 7,500 meters. They had set off on their summit attempt four days ago.
When Thomas Huber talks about freedom in the mountains, his eyes light up. “Mountains are so much more than just a name, an ascent or a record,” the older of the two Huber brothers tells me. “Mountains give you the opportunity to find something very special. Within yourself. Your inner freedom.” Thomas is now 57 years old. After losing his hunting dog Cerro, who was run over last winter, he decided to give up expeditions this year. Instead, he concentrated on training his new dog Torre – and returning to his mountaineering roots: extreme climbing.
Memorial for the dead from K2, Broad Peak in the background (in 2004).
Could Muhammad Hassan still be alive today? The report of the commission of inquiry answers this question only indirectly: Yes, the father of three small children could still be alive if he had not been on K2, the second highest mountain in the world, located in Pakistan, on that 27 July. Because he simply didn’t belong there.
It was Hassan’s first eight-thousander expedition, according to the report of the five-member commission appointed by the regional government of Gilgit-Baltistan province after the death of the High Altitude Porter. Before that, Muhammad had only worked as a “Low Altitude Porter” on K2 (8,611 meters) and Spantik (7,027 meters), i.e. he had carried material to the base camps but not up the mountains.
Willi Steindl (l.) with the family of late Muhammad Hassan
The death of the Pakistani High Altitude Porter Muhammad Hassan at the end of July in the upper zone of K2 is causing discussions all over the world. Two questions in particular are of concern even to people who have little or no interest in mountaineering. How could dozens of mountaineers simply climb over Hassan on the second highest mountain on earth, although he was obviously still alive? Why did no one try to bring him down from the accident site above the so-called “Bottleneck” – an extremely steep passage at 8.200 meters, directly below huge overhanging seracs?
The Austrian Wilhelm Steindl helped initiate the discussion. He was part of the team of expedition operator Furtenbach Adventures that turned back below the Bottleneck because of too much avalanche danger. Steindl and German cameraman Philip Flämig later viewed video footage Flämig had shot with a drone. They saw on it that Hassan was apparently still alive hours after his accident, while numerous climbers walked past or climbed over him.
Steindl and Flämig visited Hassan’s family after the end of the expedition and delivered money they had collected to the surviving dependents. Steindl has since launched a crowdfunding campaign on the Internet (click here) to help the family of the deceased porter financially in the future as well.
Steindl runs a hotel in Kirchberg in the Austrian state of Tyrol. He raced cars until he was 18. “Then my racing career failed because there were no sponsors,” Willi tells me. I talked to the Austrian climber, who turns 31 this Saturday, about the summit day on K2.
Willi, how did you personally experience the situation in the summit zone of K2 on 27 July?
The 8,611-meter-high K2 in the Karakoram (in 2004)
The pictures and videos that have been circulating in social media for days about the summit day on K2 are disturbing. In them, mountaineers can be seen climbing over the corpse of Pakistani climber Muhammad Hassan below the “Bottleneck,” the key passage at around 8,000 meters.
There are so many questions surrounding his death that the regional government of Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan province has set up a commission of inquiry. Within two weeks, it is to clarify what happened on 27 July in the summit zone of the second highest mountain on earth. What exactly happened to Hassan? Was everything done to save his life? Was he adequately equipped for his work as a High Altitude Porter? Should he even have been up there based on his mountaineering skills?
Not only was he a mountain enthusiast, but he had exceptional charisma. “Anyone who had the pleasure to spend even a few minutes with Matthew Eakin would no doubt come away with a renewed zest for life. A guy that constantly gave his time to others,” Australian adventure photographer and cameraman Rob Norman wrote of his friend Eakin after the 41-year-old fell to his death on 25 July while descending K2. “He lived the life he wanted, wore his heart on his sleeve, made the most out of this precious life we have and always did it with a smile his face.” Similarly, Cassie Davies, also a friend of Eakin’s, wrote: “He was a magnet that attracted people to him. He encouraged many of us to try things, just to dare, to put the investment in and make our dreams real.”
The unstoppable. According to Denis Urubko, he stood on the 8,611-meter-high summit of K2 this morning, at 7:30 a.m. local time in Pakistan. In doing so, he gave himself the best present on his 49th birthday. As with all his many previous ascents, Denis climbed without bottled oxygen on the second highest mountain on earth. “I was alone above Camp 4,” Urubko let it be known via Facebook.
Within ten days, the climber, who was born in the Russian North Caucasus, thus reached three eight-thousand-meter peaks – in a rush via the normal routes, without breathing mask, without a companion. First Urubko scaled Broad Peak (8,051 meters) on 19 July, then Gasherbrum II (8.034 meters) on 25 July, and now K2.
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