I was watching this video on ABC News and it made me go through so many emotions. Awe, fear, sadness, admiration and heartbreak to name a few. This is a short review of what happened Aug 2008. It will remind you of every mountain climbing movie you ever saw like Chris O'Donnell's and Sylvester Stallone's. But of course the consequences here are real. Maybe I am closer to a couch potato than Indiana Jones but I could not help but look at them and their desire to do this climb and ask "Why?" I guess some of us risk because of the meaning we place in the "reward". I still don't understand it but at least I know it's there.
All this is documented in a recently released book which I admit I am now very curious about. Granted I have an enormous backlog of unread books here that will not put me out of pocket.
There are no gruesome explicit scenes here but still they get their point across. For me it still connects emotionally. Views are fantastic. Interviews are heartbreaking. I'd like to know the emotions it brought out in you if any.
Ed
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/k2-deadliest-day/story?id=11358828
The 'Perfect' Day on K2 -- and How It Turned Deadly
Film of Climb and Survivors' Accounts Capture Swing From Euphoria on the Summit to a Terrifying Descent
By BILL WEIR and ALMIN KARAMEHMEDOVIC
Aug. 10, 2010 —
It was the worst day on the world's deadliest mountain, Aug. 1, 2008. Twenty-nine climbers headed for the summit. Only 18 would return.
K2 would kill the first Irishman ever to make the summit. It would kill a 61-year old grandfather on his third attempt. And it would kill one-half of mountaineering's most adored couple, soulmates in love with each other and with extreme adventure.
Thousands have conquered Mt. Everest, but only a few hundred have summited the world's second-highest peak, K2. Death is the recurring theme on K2, a steeper, tougher, riskier mountain that draws the brave and foolish into northern Pakistan each season.
For every four climbers to reach K2's summit, one dies. And if going up doesn't kill them, then coming back down could.
"Death during decent. This mountain is notorious for this," said climber Eric Meyer, an American doctor from Colorado.
Just getting to the base can be treacherous. Thrillseekers have to spend hours winding around dangerously narrow mountain roads in Jeeps, and then endure an eight-day hike before they can even get their first glimpse of K2 in person.
K2: Exclusive Footage
Filmmaker Fredrik Strang, with his cameras rolling, was among a group of mountaineers that converged on K2 two summers ago. "Nightline" was able to obtain his exclusive footage as he documented the team's hazardous journey through the walls of ice and rock.
Strang's videos show grim warnings of how vicious the mountain can be. Dozens of memorials dot the area around base camp. In places the mountain holds the remains of fallen climbers.
"You're standing close to a leg," one climber can be heard saying on camera.
In addition to Strang's videography, details of what happened on the mountain's deadliest day emerge in "No Way Down," a book by climber Graham Bowley, who visited the scene.
K2: The Death Zone
Aside from shifting ice, falling rocks, avalanches and sudden storms, climbers have to adapt to the high attitude and thinning air. When oxygen becomes scarce, the brain becomes foggy and muscles chill. Their journey can take months.
The maximum amount of time a climber has to get out of an oxygen-starved death zone is 18 hours.
"When you go up, your muscles tell you, 'You have to breathe now,'" said Norwegian climber Cecelia Skog.
Skog, 36, is the first woman to climb the highest peaks on all seven continents. She and her husband Rolf Bae tried to summit K2 once before, but turned back in bad weather. Their second attempt took a fatal turn.
Till Death Do Us Part
Skog joked that she had a hard time finding boyfriends who could keep up with her extreme hobby, until she met Bae, who proposed while they were skiing to the North Pole.
"[He got down on one knee] with his skis on," she said.
The couple was on K2 that fateful August day. They ascended quickly, but their climbing group was held up by other climbers at an especially treacherous passage known as the Bottleneck.
It was just before dark, and Bae began to feel weak.
"I gave him my oxygen and then I thought maybe he ... then he would feel better," Skog said.
But Bae couldn't recover. He encouraged his wife to continue on without him. Skog forged ahead and eventually made it to the peak of K2.
"It was amazing. It was fantastic. We could see that shape of K2, that shadow," Skog said of her experience on the summit. "We could see so far into China. It was, uh ... there was no wind, the sun was still up."
Skog was one of 14 to make it to the K2 summit that day. When she climbed back down, her husband was waiting to celebrate their impressive achievement.
"He was so happy. That was the way he was. He was ... he was so happy for us ... that we had that experience," Skog said. "He didn't need to be there himself."
Then suddenly tragedy struck as the group made their way back down to base camp.
While passing under a massive serac, or overhang of ice, a mini-avalanche struck the group. The falling ice cut safety ropes and swept Bae off the mountain.
In a daze, Skog managed to pick her way down to base camp in the dark. She hoped that her husband had survived the fall and would be waiting for her there.
"I just thought, 'OK, he has to be. Of course he's gone to the tent. He's in the tent,'" she said.
But Bae was gone.
And over the next several hours, many climbers would join him.
http://www.amazon.com/No-Way-Down-Life-Death/dp/0061834785
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTasjUwCLyI
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment