Read Online A Day to Die For: 1996: Everest's Worst Disaster - One Survivor's Personal Journey to Uncover the Truth by Graham Ratcliffe - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Graham Ratcliffe
Tags: General, Asia, Education & Reference, Travel, Biographies, Biographies & Memoirs, Memoirs, Adventurers & Explorers, Sports & Outdoors, Specific Groups, Mountaineering, mountain climbing, Nepal
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a team of Spanish climbers who were also heading up. According to Peter Hillary, in an article entitled ‘The Last Ascent of Alison Hargreaves’ by Greg Child for Outside magazine, it was at this juncture that the weather, which had been reasonable for the past four days, started to change: ‘Big altostratus clouds were moving in, and a strong wind was blowing snow. I saw everyone crossing the traverse. Then they disappeared in clouds.’
Concerned that a storm was approaching, Hillary and another climber Kim Logan turned back. Both survived unscathed. Alison and the other climbers continued up.
Her ascent of K2 was part of a well-publicised project to climb the world’s three highest mountains, Everest, K2 and Kangchenjunga, all without the use of supplementary oxygen. Alison had started to make her living as a climber. Such an achievement would catapult her into the higher echelons of the sport and secure her position as the world’s best female mountaineer; it would give her the recognition from the wider climbing community that she felt had been a long time coming. This in turn would bring her valuable sponsorship and hopefully a degree of financial security that might help resolve more personal issues.
The problem was that mixed up with this was her marriage to a man who was emotionally and physically abusive. She appeared to struggle with his stronger personality; he sought to control her career. Alison seemed to lack self-esteem and kept talking to others about trying to break free from the bondage of this unhappy union; although closer, she was yet to take that last determined step. The problem deepened as she tried to work out how she could bring up her two children and continue with a climbing career without her husband. In climbing, she found the control she did not have in her personal life. She was under both professional and emotional pressure.
On K2, Alison was losing that control. In desperation, she was letting outside worries influence her crucial decisions. The correct choice would have been to turn back, but this brought other pressures. She must have known from her experience she was taking an incredible risk; in light of K2’s savage reputation, no significant deterioration in the weather could be ignored. But Alison was trying to climb free of the personal problems she faced.
As the sun began to set on 13 August 1995, Alison reached the summit of K2 at 6.45 p.m. The conditions at the top were reported to be good during the radio calls that were made. Within an hour, winds well in excess of 100 mph struck the upper reaches of the mountain. The descending climbers did not stand a chance. Six people, including Alison, died on K2 that night. A seventh, Canadian Jeff Lakes, was to die of exhaustion the following night after an epic descent. He had turned around before the top. It would be described as the worst season in K2’s history.
Several miles away, on the neighbouring 26,000-ft Broad Peak, Seattle-based climber Scott Fischer had watched the events unfold. In an article that appeared in Outside Online , he said: ‘When we were coming off of Broad Peak, the winds were brutal, and the difference between Broad Peak and K2 is about 3,000 feet. That was the difference between life and death.’
Although K2 is actually only 1,837 feet higher than Broad Peak, the figure Scott gave is the exact differential that separates the summit of Everest and the South Col on the southern route of the world’s highest mountain. His words would hold significance for the following year.
Ultimately, the dangers of climbing are controlled very much by the vagaries of the sport: the overwhelming consequences of nature extracting the ultimate price from an unwary participant caught out in the open. Even for those acting with circumspection, there are no guarantees of safety. There is a fine line separating what we perceive as failure and success, between which life and death is sometimes decided. Failure to
Concerned that a storm was approaching, Hillary and another climber Kim Logan turned back. Both survived unscathed. Alison and the other climbers continued up.
Her ascent of K2 was part of a well-publicised project to climb the world’s three highest mountains, Everest, K2 and Kangchenjunga, all without the use of supplementary oxygen. Alison had started to make her living as a climber. Such an achievement would catapult her into the higher echelons of the sport and secure her position as the world’s best female mountaineer; it would give her the recognition from the wider climbing community that she felt had been a long time coming. This in turn would bring her valuable sponsorship and hopefully a degree of financial security that might help resolve more personal issues.
The problem was that mixed up with this was her marriage to a man who was emotionally and physically abusive. She appeared to struggle with his stronger personality; he sought to control her career. Alison seemed to lack self-esteem and kept talking to others about trying to break free from the bondage of this unhappy union; although closer, she was yet to take that last determined step. The problem deepened as she tried to work out how she could bring up her two children and continue with a climbing career without her husband. In climbing, she found the control she did not have in her personal life. She was under both professional and emotional pressure.
On K2, Alison was losing that control. In desperation, she was letting outside worries influence her crucial decisions. The correct choice would have been to turn back, but this brought other pressures. She must have known from her experience she was taking an incredible risk; in light of K2’s savage reputation, no significant deterioration in the weather could be ignored. But Alison was trying to climb free of the personal problems she faced.
As the sun began to set on 13 August 1995, Alison reached the summit of K2 at 6.45 p.m. The conditions at the top were reported to be good during the radio calls that were made. Within an hour, winds well in excess of 100 mph struck the upper reaches of the mountain. The descending climbers did not stand a chance. Six people, including Alison, died on K2 that night. A seventh, Canadian Jeff Lakes, was to die of exhaustion the following night after an epic descent. He had turned around before the top. It would be described as the worst season in K2’s history.
Several miles away, on the neighbouring 26,000-ft Broad Peak, Seattle-based climber Scott Fischer had watched the events unfold. In an article that appeared in Outside Online , he said: ‘When we were coming off of Broad Peak, the winds were brutal, and the difference between Broad Peak and K2 is about 3,000 feet. That was the difference between life and death.’
Although K2 is actually only 1,837 feet higher than Broad Peak, the figure Scott gave is the exact differential that separates the summit of Everest and the South Col on the southern route of the world’s highest mountain. His words would hold significance for the following year.
Ultimately, the dangers of climbing are controlled very much by the vagaries of the sport: the overwhelming consequences of nature extracting the ultimate price from an unwary participant caught out in the open. Even for those acting with circumspection, there are no guarantees of safety. There is a fine line separating what we perceive as failure and success, between which life and death is sometimes decided. Failure to
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