K2: A profile in nature at its cruelest

Although exactly what happened on K2 two weeks ago will probably never be known, new accounts indicate the ill-fated expedition was caught by a storm whose suddenness and ferocity were staggering even by Himalayan standards.

"The wind blew like we had never seen before," Lorenzo Ortas, one of two survivors of a five-man Spanish team, told the Spanish newspaper El Periodico on Tuesday. "It was like someone was trying to fling us [off the mountain]."

Alison Hargreaves of Scotland, Rob Slater of Boulder, Bruce Grant of New Zealand, and three Spanish climbers--Javier Escartin, Lorenzo Ortiz Monson, and Javier Olivar--died August 13 shortly after summiting the 28,251-foot peak. Calgary climber Jeff Lakes, who abandoned the summit bid, died that night after fighting his way down to a lower camp.

Several initial accounts blamed the deaths on an avalanche. But descriptions by Ortas, who survived the ordeal with fellow Spaniard Pepe Garcè, focus almost entirely on the evening's rapidly changing weather.

Ortas and Garcè, both of whom had stayed behind at high camp that Sunday, received a radio call from the summit team at about 7 p.m. Ortas said he was concerned by the lateness of the hour, which meant the climbers would be descending after dark.

"But they were doing well and happy with having made the summit," Ortas said. "They spoke with strong and firm voices and, furthermore, there was a full moon and the weather was good, really exceptional." According to other climbers, radio calls from Hargreaves, Grant, and Slater also described summit conditions as unusually calm.

That stillness, however, was short-lived. Other climbers in the area, including Seattle resident Scott Fischer, told Outside Online that on that day, K2 lay between two radically different weather patterns--with clear skies to the south and thick, and low clouds to the north. At about 5 p.m., Fischer said, the weather began deteriorating, and he and members of his own expedition could see clouds crawling up K2, totally engulfing the peak by 7 p.m.

Two hours later, K2 was slammed. "At 9 p.m.," Ortas said, "we were in camp 4, at 8,000 meters [24,720 feet], when a very cold windstorm began, from the North, from China, that completely blew away Pepe Garcè's tent, forcing him to share mine, so that we wouldn't present as much resistance to the wind. But it was useless. We had to spend the rest of the night outside, in the snow."

Ortas said the winds could have trapped the team below the summit, where they could not have endured the bitter cold. Other climbers speculate that the high winds, reportedly in excess of 100 mph, could have knocked people off the mountain. At least one body, believed to be that of Hargreaves, was spotted on a glacier some 4,000 feet below the summit.

Ortas, Garcè, and other climbers waited at base camp for five days, hoping for some sign of life on K2. But, he said, "there was no movement or anything on the mountain."

This story prepared by the Outside Online staff