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Death Toll Reaches 11 In K2 Ice Avalanche

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By PETE THOMAS and MUBASHIR ZAIDI

Los Angeles Times

Published: August 5, 2008

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A Dutch survivor of an ice avalanche that killed 11 climbers atop the world's second-tallest mountain over the weekend described a desperate scramble for self-preservation, with panicked mountaineers abandoning one another in the search for a way down the steep rock face.

Some of the victims were swept away by a column of ice that snapped near the summit of K2 in northern Pakistan near the Chinese border, widely regarded as the world's most treacherous peak.

The falling pane of ice severed fixed ropes used mostly for descending the near-vertical portions of slopes, leaving other climbers cut off at an oxygen-thin elevation known as the "Dead Zone."

"People were running down but didn't know where to go, so a lot of people were lost on the mountain on the wrong side, wrong route, and then you have a big problem and then things like that happen," said Wilco Van Rooijen, the leader of one expedition, in an interview from his cot in a Pakistani military hospital.

Disaster Strikes

Van Rooijen said several expeditions had waited through July for good weather to scale the 28,251-foot peak and decided to go for the summit when winds dropped on Friday. As many as 30 climbers set off.

The first setback was when the climbers had to reposition fixed ropes that an advance party had mislaid across a treacherous gully 1,150 feet below the summit, he said.

"We were astonished," van Rooijen said. "We had to move it. That took of course, many, many hours. Some turned back because they didn't trust it anymore."

Still, many pressed on, he said. They reached the summit only shortly before dark. In the rush to get down, groups including his own, drifted apart.

As many as 10 of the fastest climbers were back in the steep gully, known as the Bottleneck, when a huge chunk of ice crashed down from above, sending a Norwegian and two Nepali sherpas to their deaths.

The ice swept away some of the ropes, making it even more dangerous for those caught above, he said.

"They were not able to descend," said Nicholas Rice, a 23-year-old mountaineer from Los Angeles who was a member of a French expedition. "They had to stay there overnight, which is very, very dangerous. We knew that if there were survivors, they would have very bad frostbite. It is minus 40 degrees."

Van Rooijen, among the stragglers, said he spent the night huddled in the snow with Gerard McDonnell, an Irishman, and Marco Confortola, an Italian who was making his way down the slope on Monday.

To complicate matters for the stranded climbers, the weather turned nasty on Saturday, Rice said. The wind picked up and the snow swirled, intermittently creating whiteout conditions.

Van Rooijen slept two nights on K2 without a sleeping bag, food or water, but was plucked from the mountain by a rescue helicopter after making his way down from the icy upper reaches of the pyramid-shaped peak.

He described passing three South Korean climbers who chose to wait for rescuers and who are believed to have been among the dead.

Other climbers fell to their deaths while trying to cross the gully where the safety ropes had been severed, according to a spokesman for the Dutch expedition who had been in contact with Van Rooijen by satellite phone.

News reports also said at least some of the trapped climbers froze to death after being forced to spend the night near the top of the peak.

'The Holy Grail Of Mountains'

The deadly mountain scene is eerily reminiscent of the 1996 catastrophe on Mount Everest that killed eight climbers in a tragedy described in Jon Krakauer's best-selling book, "Into Thin Air."

Van Rooijen, 40, who had attempted K2 twice before, said climbers ignored his pleas for calm.

"They were thinking of using my gas, my rope," he said. "Everybody was fighting for himself, and I still do not understand why everybody was leaving each other."

Ed Viesturs, who has conquered K2 and recently concluded a successful 16-year quest to scale all 14 of the world's 8,000-meter peaks, said that K2 is considered "the Holy Grail of mountains."

Viesturs said K2 is considered more difficult than the slightly higher Mount Everest because the peaks are steep and difficult to climb from all approaches, and because its weather is "unpredictable and often unrelenting."

A French climber presumed dead, Hugues d'Aubarede, relayed an account of the climb that was posted on a blog. His last message, from the foot of the Bottleneck, was:

"I would love it if everyone could contemplate this ocean of mountains and glaciers. They put me through the wringer, but it's so beautiful. The night will be long but beautiful."

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

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