The 1986 K2 disaster refers to a period from 6 August to 10 August 1986, when five mountaineers died on the eight-thousander K2, in the Karakoram during a severe storm. Eight other climbers were killed in the weeks preceding, bringing the total number of deaths that climbing season to 13.
The first casualties of the summer occurred on an American expedition. Like many others that summer, the team hoped to be the first to summit via the technically demanding and as-yet-unclimbed Southwest Pillar, also known as the "Magic Line". Team leader John Smolich and Alan Pennington were killed in an avalanche on 21 June. Pennington's body was pulled out by climbers who had witnessed the incident, but Smolich's body has yet to be found. The rest of the team left the mountain shortly after the accident. [1]
On 23 June, French climbers Liliane and Maurice Barrard reached the summit, just 30 minutes after their teammate Wanda Rutkiewicz became the first woman to summit K2. [2] Both Liliane Barrard and Rutkiewicz were climbing without bottled oxygen. [3] As darkness fell, all three, along with team member Michel Parmentier and two Basque [4] climbers, Mari Abrego [5] and Josema Casimiro, had to make an emergency bivouac shelter not far from the summit itself. While all six made it through the night, the Barrards disappeared at some point during the descent. [1] Liliane's body was recovered three weeks later, but Maurice's was not found until 1998. [3]
Polish climber Tadeusz Piotrowski fell to his death after a successful summit of the central rib of the south face on 10 July. Six days later, Italian soloist Renato Casarotto fell into a crevasse, after an unsuccessful attempt at climbing the Southwest Pillar. He was rescued from the crevasse, but died shortly thereafter. [1] On 3 August, Wojciech Wróż, part of a combined Slovak-Polish team that successfully summitted the Southwest Pillar without using bottled oxygen, slipped off the end of a fixed rope and fell to his death. [1] On 4 August, Muhammad Ali, Sardar for a South Korean expedition, was killed by falling rocks on the Abruzzi Spur. Difficult weather conditions caused many other injuries and near-fatalities throughout the summer. [6]
Alan Rouse was the leader of a British expedition. He obtained a permit to climb the difficult north-west ridge, instead of the conventional Abruzzi Spur. After several unsuccessful attempts to establish camps on their chosen route, the group disbanded, leaving only Rouse and cameraman Jim Curran on the mountain. Curran returned to Base Camp, but Rouse chose to continue his summit bid. [1]
Rouse's expedition was not the only one facing difficulties that summer on K2. While Rouse and the British expedition attempted the north-west ridge, other expeditions had also been trying various other routes, with and without oxygen. After his fellow team members left the mountain, Rouse joined forces with six climbers—Austrians Alfred Imitzer, Hannes Wieser, Willi Bauer, and Kurt Diemberger; a Polish climber, Dobrosława Miodowicz-Wolf; and another British climber, Julie Tullis—in an attempt to summit via the conventional route, without a permit.
The newly formed team made it to Camp IV, the final staging post before the summit, but for reasons that are still unclear, the climbers decided to wait a day before making a summit push. Despite deteriorating weather conditions, Rouse and Wolf set out for the summit on 4 August. Wolf quickly tired and dropped back, and Rouse continued alone. Two of the Austrian climbers, Willi Bauer and Alfred Imitzer, caught up with him some 100 m (330 ft) below the summit. Rouse fell in behind the Austrians, and the three reached the summit together at around 4:00 p.m. on 4 August. Rouse was the first Englishman to reach K2's summit. [1]
On the way down, 150 m (500 ft) below the summit, they found Wolf asleep in the snow and persuaded her to descend. They also met Kurt Diemberger and Julie Tullis, who were still on their way up, and tried unsuccessfully to persuade them to turn back. Diemberger and Tullis summited around 7:00 p.m. On the descent, Tullis fell, and though she survived, both she and Diemberger were forced to spend the night bivouacked in the open. [1]
Eventually, all the climbers reached Camp IV and rejoined Hannes Wieser, who had stayed behind. The seven waited for the storm to abate. Instead, the storm worsened, bringing heavy snowfall, winds over 160 km/h (99 mph), and sub-zero temperatures. With no food and no gas to melt the snow into water, the team members were in imminent peril. At an altitude of 8,000 m (26,000 ft) the body requires approximately six litres (1.3 imp gal; 1.6 US gal) of fluid per day to avoid dangerous thickening of the blood. Given that the oxygen saturation of the air at this altitude is only a third of that at sea level, the risk of death by hypoxia is great.
Tullis died during the night of 6–7 August, presumably of HAPE (high-altitude pulmonary edema), a common consequence of lack of oxygen during physical exertion. The other six climbers stayed at Camp IV for the next three days, but remained barely conscious. On 10 August, the snow stopped, but the temperature dropped, and the wind continued unabated. Though weak and severely dehydrated, the remaining climbers decided they had no other choice but to descend.
Rouse, when conscious, was in agony, and the other climbers had to leave him behind in his tent to save their own lives. It was a decision for which the survivors, particularly Diemberger, would be severely criticized. Jim Curran, part of Rouse's British expedition, defended Diemberger, saying that "there was absolutely no way that either Diemberger or Willi Bauer could have gotten Rouse off the mountain alive." [1] Imitzer and Wieser, blinded by the snow, collapsed just a few hundred feet from camp and could not be revived. Wolf, who was descending last, never made it back. A year later, members of a Japanese expedition found her attached to the fixed ropes, still standing upright and leaning against the wall. [7]
Bauer and Diemberger, the two remaining climbers, found that Camp III had been blown away by the hurricane-force winds but were able to make it to the relative safety of Camp II during the evening of 10 August. Bauer made it to Base Camp under his own power, but Diemberger had to be brought down by Jim Curran and a pair of Polish climbers. Bauer and Diemberger were helicoptered to safety on 16 August. Both lost multiple fingers and toes as a result of severe frostbite. [1]
| Name | Nationality | Date | Cause of death |
|---|---|---|---|
| John Smolich |  United States | 21 June | Avalanche |
| Alan Pennington | United States | ||
| Maurice Barrard |  France | 24 June | Disappeared on descent |
| Lilliane Barrard | France | ||
| Tadeusz Piotrowski |  Poland | 10 July | Fall |
| Renato Casarotto |  Italy | 16 July | Crevasse fall |
| Wojciech Wróż | Poland | 3–4 August | Fall |
| Muhammad Ali |  Pakistan | 4 August | Stonefall |
| Name | Nationality | Date | Cause of death |
|---|---|---|---|
| Julie Tullis |  United Kingdom | 6–7 August | Precise details unknown: edemas, exposure and exhaustion most likely |
| Alan Rouse | United Kingdom | 10 August | |
| Hannes Wieser |  Austria | ||
| Alfred Imitzer | Austria | ||
| Dobrosława Miodowicz-Wolf | Poland |
K2, at 8,611 metres (28,251 ft) above sea level, is the second-highest mountain on Earth, after Mount Everest at 8,849 metres (29,032 ft). It lies in the Karakoram range, partially in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan-administered Kashmir and partially in the China-administered Trans-Karakoram Tract in the Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County of Xinjiang.
The eight-thousanders are the 14 mountains recognised by the International Mountaineering and Climbing Federation (UIAA) as being more than 8,000 metres (26,247 ft) in height above sea level, and sufficiently independent of neighbouring peaks. There is no precise definition of the criteria used to assess independence, and at times, the UIAA has considered whether the list should be expanded to 20 mountain peaks by including the major satellite peaks of eight-thousanders. All of the eight-thousanders are located in the Himalayan and Karakoram mountain ranges in Asia, and their summits lie in an altitude known as the death zone.
Dhaulagiri, located in Nepal, is the seventh highest mountain in the world at 8,167 metres (26,795 ft) above sea level, and the highest mountain within the borders of a single country. It was first climbed on 13 May 1960 by a Swiss-Austrian-Nepali expedition. Annapurna I is 34 km (21 mi) east of Dhaulagiri. The Kali Gandaki River flows between the two in the Kaligandaki Gorge, said to be the world's deepest. The town of Pokhara is south of the Annapurnas, an important regional center and the gateway for climbers and trekkers visiting both ranges as well as a tourist destination in its own right.
Broad Peak is one of the eight-thousanders, and is located in the Karakoram range spanning Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan and Xinjiang, China. It is the 12th highest mountain in the world with 8,051 metres (26,414 ft) elevation above sea level. The first ascent of this mountain was in June 1957, accomplished by Fritz Wintersteller, Marcus Schmuck, Kurt Diemberger, and Hermann Buhl as part of an Austrian expedition.
Hermann Buhl was an Austrian mountaineer. His accomplishments include the first ascents of Nanga Parbat in 1953 and Broad Peak in 1957.
Kurt Diemberger is an Austrian mountaineer and author of several books. He is the only living person who has made the first ascents on two mountains over 8,000 metres: of Broad Peak in 1957 and of Dhaulagiri in 1960. In 2013, he won the Piolet d'Or Lifetime Achievement Award.
Peter Boardman was an English mountaineer and author. He is best known for a series of bold and lightweight expeditions to the Himalayas, often in partnership with Joe Tasker, and for his contribution to mountain literature. Boardman and Tasker died on the North East Ridge of Mount Everest in 1982. The Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature was established in their memory.
Krzysztof Jerzy Wielicki is a Polish mountaineer, regarded as one of the greatest Polish climbers in history. He is the 5th man to climb all fourteen eight-thousanders and the first ever to climb Mount Everest, Kangchenjunga, and Lhotse in winter. He is a member of The Explorers Club.
Wanda Rutkiewicz was a Polish mountaineer and computer engineer. She was the first woman to reach the summit of K2 and the third woman to summit Mount Everest.
Nazir Sabir is a Pakistani mountaineer. He was born in Hunza. He has climbed Mount Everest and four of the five 8000 m peaks in Pakistan, including the world's second highest mountain K2 in 1981, Gasherbrum II 8035m, Broad Peak 8050m in 1982, and Gasherbrum I 8068m in 1992. He became the first from Pakistan to have climbed Everest on 17 May 2000 as a team member on the Mountain Madness Everest Expedition led by Christine Boskoff from the United States that also included famed Everest climber Peter Habeler of Austria and eight Canadians.
Lino Lacedelli was an Italian mountaineer. Together with Achille Compagnoni, on 31 July 1954 he was the first man to reach the summit of K2.
Alan Paul Rouse was the first British climber to reach the summit of the second highest mountain in the world, K2, but died on the descent.
Liliane Barrard and Maurice Barrard were a French couple who gained fame climbing at high altitude, mainly in the Himalayan and Karakoram ranges, and emphasizing Alpine-style 'fast and light' ascents.
Julie Tullis was a British climber and filmmaker who died while descending from K2's summit during a storm, along with four other climbers from several expeditions, during the "Black Summer" of 1986.
The 1953 American Karakoram expedition was a mountaineering expedition to K2, at 8,611 metres the second highest mountain on Earth. It was the fifth expedition to attempt K2, and the first since the Second World War. Led by Charles Houston, a mainly American team attempted the mountain's South-East Spur in a style which was unusually lightweight for the time. The team reached a high point of 7750 m, but were trapped by a storm in their high camp, where a team member, Art Gilkey, became seriously ill. A desperate retreat down the mountain followed, during which all but one of the climbers were nearly killed in a fall arrested by Pete Schoening, and Gilkey later died in an apparent avalanche. The expedition has been widely praised for the courage shown by the climbers in their attempt to save Gilkey, and for the team spirit and the bonds of friendship it fostered.
The 2008 K2 disaster occurred on 1 August 2008, when 11 mountaineers from international expeditions died on K2, the second-highest mountain on Earth. Three others were seriously injured. The series of deaths, over the course of the Friday ascent and Saturday descent, was the worst single accident in the history of K2 mountaineering. Some of the specific details remain uncertain, with different plausible scenarios having been given about different climbers' timing and actions, when reported later via survivors' eyewitness accounts or via radio communications of climbers who died later in the course of events on K2 that day.
Gerard McDonnell, mountaineer and engineer, was the first Irishman to reach the summit of K2, the second-highest mountain on Earth, in August 2008. He died along with 10 other mountaineers following an avalanche on the descent, in the deadliest accident in the history of K2 mountaineering.
On the 1954 Italian expedition to K2, Achille Compagnoni and Lino Lacedelli became the first people to reach the summit of K2, 8,611 metres (28,251 ft), the second highest mountain in the world. They reached the summit on 31 July 1954. K2 is more difficult to climb than Mount Everest, 8,849 metres (29,032 ft), which had first been climbed by a British expedition in 1953.
Dobrosława "Dobrusia" "Mrówka" Miodowicz-Wolf, was a Polish alpinist, mountaineer, ethnographer and researcher at Poland's National Museum of Ethnography. She was the daughter of politician and trade union activist Alfred Miodowicz, sister of politician Konstanty Miodowicz, and the wife of mountaineer Jan Wolf. She died in the Karakorum on the descent from the summit of K2.
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