Marco Confortola descending to Base Camp

At circa 10.30 K2-time Marco Confortola reached ABC at 5400m at the foot of the Abruzzi Spur. The Italian mountaineer is being helped down by George Dijmarescu, the American mountaineer of Romanian origin, and a high altitude porter who climbed up to help Confortola descend. At ABC Confortola met up with fellow Italian Mario Panzeri who is accompanying down to BC since poor weather conditions have rendered a helicopter rescue impossible.

Hopes are that the helicopter will be able to reach Confortola as soon as possible to enable a swift analysis of his feet which, according to Confortola, are suffering from frostbite. Further good news come from www.explorersweb.com which refers that two Austrian mountaineers (present in some missing lists) are safe and sound in Base Camp and in all probability these are Christian Stangl and Thomas Strausz. This is another example of the difficulties in communication and organisation which more often then not need to be put in conditional terms awaiting confirmation.

Greater details of these extremely serious turn of events on Friday night and Saturday morning are beginning to unfold. Confortola confirmed on montagna.tv what the Korean mountaineers had previously stated, namely that a group of mountaineers blocked at the Bottleneck were hit by an avalanche after their fixed ropes had been swept away by a serac fall.

As always happens in these moments (such as on K2 in 1986 which cost the lives of 13 mountaineers and Everest 1996 which cost the lives of 9) an in-depth analysis about what happened will be carried out as the various eye witness reports are published. At present there is simply too little information to go by, but the most plausible reasons seem to be the high number of climbers on summit day, the late hour of arrival on the summit itself, the serac fall which swept away the fixed ropes rendering the descent more difficult and, as we have recently learned, the ensuing avalanche.

Many press agencies and official Pakistan sources cite 11 victims on K2. These include 2 Nepalese Sherpa and two Pakistani high-altitude porters. It is important to note that once again some of these climbers lost their lives while attempting to rescue other mountaineers in difficulty.