Archive for the ‘mt. everest’ tag
K2, the Dangerous #
An unexpected editorial about a disaster highlights an unexpected fact:
One inevitable measure of a mountain is simply how often climbers escape with their lives. By that standard, K2 stands almost alone in the world. It is a lesser peak than Everest only in height. In every other respect, it is a far more arduous climb: steeper, colder and more isolated.
Many more people have died on Everest, but only because so many more climbers of every skill level have undertaken it. The risk of failing — and dying — is far greater on K2, as the mountain proved again this week when 11 climbers were killed, nine of them after an icefall swept away the fixed ropes they needed to retreat down an icy chute called the Bottleneck.
Having just recently watched Frontline’s “Storm Over Everest” the even greater danger of K2 wouldn’t have occurred to me.