Climbing community sifts through sketchy details on K2

By Paul Roberts, Outside Online

Friends, family, and fellow climbers are still trying to piece together events that led to the disappearance and presumed deaths last Sunday of Scottish mountaineer Alison Hargreaves and six other climbers on Pakistan's K2.

On Wednesday, reports received by Outside Online via satellite phone from a separate climbing expedition indicated that Hargreaves and five other climbers--Rob Slater of Boulder, Colo., Bruce Grant of New Zealand, and three unidentified members of a five-person Spanish team--died late August 13 after summiting the 28,251-foot peak.

A sixth climber--Jeff Lakes, from Calgary--who had abandoned Sunday's summit bid earlier in the day, died after struggling back to a lower camp.

On Thursday, K2 base camp was emptying out as survivors and porters packed gear for the return trip. "The mood is somber," said Scott Fischer, a Seattle-based climber who was leading an expedition up nearby Broad Peak and who sent out the first report of the accident Tuesday via satellite phone. "We've been listening as people have called relatives to tell them what happened. It's been hard."

As difficult, particularly for friends and relatives awaiting news, has been the welter of conflicting media reports. On Thursday, The Associated Press in Islamabad, Pakistan, carried a report by government officials there saying that between five and seven climbers had been caught in an avalanche somewhere above 26,400 feet.

But Fischer, who spoke with Outside Online again on Thursday, said seven climbers were dead, adding that he could not confirm whether an avalanche had been the cause. He said Lakes had died after barely reaching a lower camp. He also said that the body of an unidentified climber was visible on K2 from base camp, indicating that at least one of the climbers may have fallen. New Zealander Peter Hillary returned safely to base camp.

Fischer said that early Sunday morning, 8 climbers--Hargreaves, Slater, Grant, Lakes, Hillary, and three Spaniards--left high camp in separate groups. The Spaniards were reportedly attempting the south-spur route, while Hargreaves' group was going up the Abruzzi Ridge. At some point during that day, Lakes and Hillary turned back.

At 6 p.m., base camp received a radio call indicating that Hargreaves, Slater, Grant, and the three Spaniards had reached the summit. They were not heard from again. Spotters reported an unidentified group of climbers pinned by wind against the mountainside.

One unidentified body was visible through spotting scopes and appeared to have fallen at least 1,500 feet, Fischer said. Kevin Cooney, a member of Hargreaves' expedition who left base camp on August 6 to return to Colorado, said he suspects that the victims all may have fallen.

"The fact that they called from the summit and then no one heard from them again makes me think a fall was involved," Cooney told Outside Online on Wednesday. "If they had spent the night out and died from exposure, they would have [radioed] at least once."

Fischer, who in 1992 covered the same route up K2 that Hargreaves followed, said that an avalanche might have caught some of the climbers, but he wasn't sure whether the same avalanche hit the entire group. The Spanish team and the other three climbers "were climbing as two different teams," Fischer said. "They probably came down in two groups of three."

Fischer said that two surviving Spanish climbers, who had stayed behind at high camp and had returned to a lower camp badly frostbitten, reported coming across an undetermined number of unidentified bodies below high camp, somewhere between 26,000 feet and 24,500 feet.

Cooney said Thursday that he has spent the last two days fielding press inquiries--many of them about Hargreaves. The 33-year-old mother of two, who in May became the first woman to solo Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen, had been a rising star in the international climbing community and a favorite of the British press.

Cooney said that many of the media calls have focused on the risks Hargreaves exposed herself to. "They're saying, 'How could she do that? She had kids," Cooney said. He noted that the press rarely focuses on male climbers who also happen to be fathers. "It's gender thing," he said.

Hargreaves "understood the risks," Cooney continued. "She had been on enough big mountains to understand what kind of risk she was exposing herself to. She's lost friends in the mountains, and she understood that big mountains have a certain objective danger that you may not have any control over."

Hargreaves had been part of an American expedition that included Cooney and six other climbers. Cooney said two of the team members had left before August, and that he and three others departed August 6, after numerous summit attempts had been thwarted by bad weather. "I made a decision that I would expose myself to risk only so many times," Cooney said.

Hargreaves and Slater had been ready to depart with Cooney on August 6, Cooney said, but had decided at the last minute to stay and make a final summit bid. "The really hard part," Cooney said, "is that they finally got the weather, got up there [on the summit], and then got slammed on the way down."

This story compiled by the Outside Online staff.