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 episode 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, and different versions reported later via survivors' eyewitness accounts or via radio communications of climbers who died (sometimes minutes) later in the course of events on K2 that day.
The main problem was reported to be an ice avalanche which occurred at an area known as "the Bottleneck". This destroyed many of the climbers' rope lines leaving them unable to descend. However, two climbers died on the way up to the summit prior to the avalanche. Among the dead were climbers and support crew from France, Ireland, South Korea, Nepal, Norway, Pakistan, and Serbia.
Expedition goal: K2
K2 is the second-highest mountain on earth, after Mount Everest, with a peak elevation of 8,611 metres (28,251 ft). K2 is part of the Karakoram range, not far from the Himalayas, and is located on the border between the Pakistani Gilgit-Baltistan region, and China's Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County of Xinjiang Autonomous Region. It is regarded by mountaineers as far more challenging than Everest, and is statistically the third most dangerous mountain in the world in terms of fatality per summit.
The most dangerous section of the climb is the Bottleneck, a steep couloir overhung by seracs from the ice field east of the summit. The high risk of falling ice and avalanches means climbers aim to minimize time spent there.
The climbing season at K2 lasts from June to August, but in 2008 adverse weather prevented any groups from summiting during June and July. At the end of July, ten different groups were waiting for good weather, some of them having waited for almost two months. The months preceding the summit push were used for acclimatization and preparing for the camps higher on the mountain, the highest of them, Camp IV, at 7,800–7,900 m (25,600–25,900 ft) above sea level.
Events between Camp IV and the summit
With July's end approaching and forecasts of improving weather, several groups arrived at Camp IV on 31 July in preparation to try the summit as soon as weather would permit. Members of an American team, a French team, a Norwegian team, a Serbian team, a South Korean team along with their Sherpas from Nepal, an international team sponsored by the Dutch company Norit, and the teams' Pakistani high-altitude porters (HAPs) decided to work together on the Friday 1 August ascent. A few independent climbers (a solo Spaniard and an Italian pair) also pushed for the summit in the morning.
Friday, 1 August
Initial delays
The HAPs and Sherpas started to prepare fixed lines before midnight. They were joined by Spanish solo climber Alberto Zerain, who climbed from Camp III during the night and decided to continue his summit push early, rather than stay at Camp IV. The most experienced HAP, Shaheen Baig, had to go back down with symptoms of altitude sickness. His experience as the only person in the collected teams to have previously summited K2, and his unofficial leadership of the HAPs and Sherpas, was sorely missed. Some confusion followed and ropes may have been left behind or placed too far down the slope from the Bottleneck.
When the climbing groups started upward at 3 a.m., they found that the HAPs and Sherpas had started planting lines right above Camp IV, where they were not needed, up into the Bottleneck, and then had run out of rope for the traverse just above the Bottleneck. This forced the climbers to take the rope from the lower portion of the route and use it to prepare the lines above the Bottleneck, causing a dangerous unplanned delay in the climb schedule.
At this point, Eric Meyer and Fredrik Sträng of the American group decided to abort and return to Camp IV, concerned about both the high probability of reaching the summit too late in the evening, and the high exposure to ice fall in the crowded Bottleneck. Chris Klinke pushed on for a few more hours before abandoning the ascent, as did Jelle Staleman of the Norit team, who was also suffering frozen feet.
Mandić and Baig fall
At 8 a.m., climbers were finally advancing through the Bottleneck. Dren Mandić from the Serbian team decided to unclip himself from the fixed rope to attend to his oxygen system and to pass Cecilie Skog of the Norwegian team. He lost his balance and fell, bumping into Skog. She was still clipped to the rope and was knocked off her feet. Mandić, however, fell over 100 m (328 feet) down the Bottleneck. Some climbers at Camp IV claimed they could see he was still moving after the fall and sent a group to help recover him. Swede Fredrik Sträng stated he took command of the recovery operation.
When Sträng reached the body, Serbian climbers Predrag Zagorac and Iso Planić, along with their HAP Mohammed Hussein, had already arrived. They had found no pulse and, judging by the severity of Mandić's injuries, pronounced him dead. The Serbian climbers decided to lower the body down to Camp IV, and Sträng assisted them. They were joined by Jehan Baig, a HAP from the French team, who had fulfilled his assisting duties and had been allowed to head down. Several people later indicated Baig may have been suffering from high altitude sickness, since he had displayed questionable behaviour in abseiling down the Bottleneck. Sträng also noticed that Baig was incoherent, first offering to help in the rescue, later refusing to help, then returning moments later to assist them again. Baig lost his footing and bumped into Sträng, who then urged him to let go of the rope attached to Mandić's harness, before all four climbers would be dragged down. Baig finally let go of the rope, but to Sträng's and the others' horror, he did not try to stop his own slide by using the self-arrest technique, which has about a 50% chance of arresting a fall, and fell to his death. It is unclear why he did not try to stop his slide. Sträng then decided to descend without Mandić's body. The Serbian group also aborted, wrapped Mandić's body in a flag and fastened him to the mountain, and started to descend. Nicholas Rice, a climber with the French team who had been delayed, also aborted at this point.
These delays, together with the traffic jam in the Bottleneck, resulted in most climbers reaching the summit much later than planned, some as late as 8 p.m., well outside the typical time for summiting of 3 to 5 p.m. Altogether, 18 people summited. On the descent, the Spaniard Alberto Zerain, who had topped out first and alone at 3 p.m., managed to pass through the Bottleneck without trouble.
First serac fall
By 8:30, darkness had enveloped K2. Members of the Norwegian group – including Lars Flatø Nessa and Skog, who had both summited two hours after Zerain – had almost navigated the traverse leading to the Bottleneck, when a serac broke off from above. As it fell, the ice cut all the fixed lines and fatally injured Skog's husband Rolf Bae, who had abandoned the ascent only 100 m (330 ft) below the summit, telling Nessa to look after his wife, as he waited for her to return. Nessa and Skog continued descending without the fixed lines, and managed to reach Camp IV during the night.
As a result of the serac's fall, the descent through the Bottleneck became more technical. Chunks of ice lay scattered around the route, and the mountaineers above were stranded in darkness in the death zone above 8,000 m (26,000 ft). Since the climbers had planned for the fixed lines, they were not carrying additional ropes or fall protection devices, forcing them to "free solo" the descent through the notorious Bottleneck. According to team Norit's Dutch mountaineer Wilco van Rooijen, panic broke out among the climbers waiting above the Bottleneck. Some tried to descend in the darkness, while others decided to bivouac and wait until morning before descending.
Midnight descents
The Norit team included a full climbing member named Pemba Gyalje, a Sherpa mountaineer who years earlier had been a support climber on Mount Everest. Gyalje descended in the darkness without fixed ropes to reach Camp IV before midnight. Sherpa Chhiring Dorje also descended the Bottleneck with "Little" Pasang Lama (who had been stranded without an ice axe) secured to his harness. "I can just about imagine how you might pull it off," writes Ed Viesturs in K2: Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain. "You kick each foot in solid, plant the axe, then tell the other guy to kick with his own feet and punch holds with his hands. Don't move until he's secure. Still, if Pasang had come off [i.e., 'fallen'], he probably would have taken Chhiring with him. Talk about selfless!"
Two members of the South Korean expedition, Kim Jae-soo and Go Mi-Young, also managed to navigate the Bottleneck in the dark, although the latter had to be helped by two Sherpas from the Korean B team, Chhiring Bhote and "Big" Pasang Bhote, who were supposed to summit the next morning. The men had climbed up around midnight without food or oxygen, and found Go Mi-Young stranded somewhere in the Bottleneck, unsure of which route she had to take. They guided her down safely.
D'Aubarède's fall
Meanwhile, team Norit's Cas van de Gevel and the French team's Hugues D'Aubarède had each decided to manoeuvre the Bottleneck in the dark. As van de Gevel reached the bottom of the Bottleneck, he witnessed a climber falling to his death, a story corroborated by the two Sherpas Chhiring Bhote and "Big" Pasang Bhote, who also had witnessed one or two objects falling from the mountain. This climber was probably D'Aubarède, who van de Gevel had passed just above the Bottleneck in the dark. D'Aubarède had run out of bottled oxygen hours before, and when van de Gevel had passed him, he had looked tired and insisted van de Gevel descend before him.
Italian semi-soloist Marco Confortola and Norit teammates van Rooijen and Irishman Ger McDonnell bivouacked above the traverse, as they could not find the fixed ropes leading across the traverse. Confortola claimed that during the bivouac, he heard screams and saw a head torch disappear below him after a roaring sound came from the serac field. At that point, eight people were still above the Bottleneck.
Saturday, 2 August
The rescue efforts started in the base camp as a group was sent upwards with ropes to help those still stuck in the Bottleneck. The group included Sherpas Tsering Bhote and "Big" Pasang Bhote, who had previously helped Go Mi-Young down the Bottleneck; they now went to search for their relative Jumik Bhote, who had been stranded with the remaining climbers of the Korean expedition somewhere above the Bottleneck.
Second serac fall
Early in the morning, above the traverse, van Rooijen gave up the search for the fixed ropes and descended alone. His vision was deteriorating and he feared he was going snow blind, requiring him to get off the mountain quickly. Confortola and McDonnell did not immediately follow him. Later, van Rooijen reached the remaining Korean climbers (Confortola claims one of them was Kyeong-Hyo Park) and their guide Jumik Bhote.
The men were tangled in several ropes and had clearly been hanging there throughout the night, some upside down and bloodied, but all alive. It is unclear whether the men were the victims of a second serac fall, an avalanche, or perhaps a regular fall leaving them tangled in the ropes. Some sources mention only two Koreans and Jumik Bhote, while other reports indicate three remaining Koreans (one near death). It could be that this was the event Confortola had witnessed during the bivouac the previous night, while it could also be that this was the second object Tsering Bhote and "Big" Pasang Bhote saw falling off the mountain—there is little direct evidence to confirm either possibility. Van Rooijen handed Jumik Bhote his spare gloves but was unable to help them any more. He claims Jumik Bhote informed him a rescue mission was under way from Camp IV. Van Rooijen decided to continue descending.