FUCK THAT SHERPA, I PAID 50,000 BUCKS TO GET TO THE TOP

I've witnessed the crazed 'summit fever' of arrogant, rich Western tourists who will stop at NOTHING to get to the top... that's why the K2 porter's death is as unsurprising as it is sickening

 

By Sadie Whitelocks

 

Daily Mail 

Aug 11, 2023

 

K2 is the world’s second highest mountain (28,251 ft.) after Everest (29,032 ft.).

 

The snow no longer felt cold. In fact, it felt warm and fluffy. I closed my eyes – and began to drift off.

I was utterly exhausted. Frozen numb and low on oxygen at around 22,600ft up Everest’s Tibetan ascent.

Surrounded by crevasses and treacherous drops, I stopped at an ice bed for rest, failing to realize how easily these mountains can claim lives.

‘Come on, Sadie,’ one of my group’s sherpas, Nima, demanded. ‘We're not far. Just another hour, then we’re there.’

He was kind, but firm. Because he knew all too well: if I’d fallen asleep, I might never have woken up.

That was March 2018 – and memories of that trepidatious climb came flooding back this week as drone footage of 27-year-old Pakistani Muhammad Hassan’s dying moments on the slopes of the K2 mountain went viral.

We all watched in horror as a mortally injured Muhammad, a sherpa (known as ‘porters’ in Pakistan), lay motionless at 27,000ft, wedged into the snowy rockface of K2 – second in height only to Everest but more fatal.

 

Memories of a trepidatious climb came flooding back this week as drone footage of 27-year-old Pakistani Muhammad Hassan’s dying moments on the slopes of the K2 mountain went viral. Instead of helping him, fellow climbers went up the side of the mountain and past him

The video shows clouds several thousand feet below them, revealing just how high they were when the footage was taken.

Muhammad Hassan lay dying after he slipped at a dangerous point on the mountain. We all watched in horror as a mortally injured Muhammad, a sherpa (known as ‘porters’ in Pakistan), lay motionless at 27,000ft, wedged into the snowy rockface of K2 – second in height only to Everest but more fatal.

 

As is now common on these ‘bucket-list’ peaks, Muhammad was far from alone – surrounded by dozens of eager climbers, many from the West, who pay hefty sums to be shepherded safely to the summit by adept local guides just like Muhammad.

Nima was my Muhammad. And how lucky I was to have him to keep me awake, to hold my hand.

Muhammad wasn’t so lucky – perhaps precisely because he was a sherpa and not a paying tourist.

And as mountaineers took it in turns to apathetically step over the father-of-three’s limp body in their relentless pursuit of the peak, his life slipped away.

Just two climbers were reported to have stopped to help. By the end, he was so stricken he couldn’t talk or even hear.

Worse, a group of Norwegian climbers posted pictures on social media moments after his death celebrating a record-busting ascent time that no doubt would have been scuppered had they paused to come to Muhammad’s aid.

Disgusting, yes. But, sadly, as someone who has spent over a decade in the unique and bizarre world of elite climbing, I can tell you that this travesty of inhumanity was a disaster waiting to happen.

Sure, sherpas and porters look out for each other even if tourists don’t, but at the end of the day, they are under enormous pressure to prioritize their clients.

And these clients, predominantly high-flying, uber-rich Westerners, change at high altitudes.

These might well be decent, kind people at base camp. But, high up as the atmosphere thins, at the peak of human achievement, as the very top of the world looms into view, the look in their eyes can turn menacing.

Why should they jeopardize their own slim chance of success to help another climber? It’s every man for himself.

There’s also the money. An Everest or K2 climb will set you back the better part of $50,000. Even for the few who can afford that, it’s likely a one-time thing.

 

Muhammad was far from alone – surrounded by dozens of eager climbers, many from the West, who pay hefty sums to be shepherded safely to the summit by adept local guides just like Muhammad. (Pictured: Author Sadie Whitelocks).

As mountaineers took it in turns to apathetically step over the father-of-three’s limp body in their relentless pursuit of the peak, his life slipped away. Just two climbers were reported to have stopped to help. By the end, he was so stricken he couldn’t talk or even hear. (Pictured: Sadie with famous mountaineer Nirmal Purja).

 

Training also takes months, often away from family and friends in arduous conditions, acclimatizing to altitudes and building fitness. Sacrifice is essential – and when push comes to shove, the fear of failure can overwhelm you.

I first heard about the concept of 'summit fever' – the dangerous compulsion to reach the top no matter the costs – during a 2010 lecture at The Explorers Club in New York City.

As a 23-year-old with no mountaineering experience at the time, I was appalled.

You might die, others might die, but so be it. Surely not, I thought.

But as my experience grew – climbing in Tibet, Nepal, Africa, Russia, Argentina in my holidays – I soon realized ‘summit fever’ is a real and terrifying phenomenon.

By far, the worst offenders I have seen on the mountains are monied amateurs.

Both men and women, transformed into arrogant monsters, decked out in all the most expensive gear but often with no idea, yet insistent that their spending must precipitate success.

Such people also tend treat the sherpas and porters terribly.

They’re also invariably over-ambitious, unfit and often put their guides in real danger at high altitudes.

Nonetheless, the rapid rise of adventure tourism and ‘peak bragging’ has made healthy business for local communities – though only in relative terms (a sherpa can expect to earn $5,000 in a climbing season).

And make no mistake: theirs is the most dangerous job in the world.

I went to Everest in 2018 to set a world record for the highest dinner party, which would take place at 23,149ft – some 6,000ft from the summit.

The expedition raised money for the Nepalese community in the wake of the devastating 2015 earthquake, and thankfully sponsors covered my prohibitive costs.

The sherpas and porters who completed the world record with us became our friends and – as I know all too well – some of us owe them our lives.

 

By far, the worst offenders I have seen on the mountains are monied amateurs. Such people tend treat the sherpas and porters terribly. (Pictured: Sadie and her teammates set the world record for the highest dinner party at 23,149ft up Everest).

 

They taught us how to dance to Nepali pop, while we treated them to a high-altitude egg and spoon race.

But such an experience is the exception.

On the whole, the marked segregation between the clients and local guides verges on abuse: they’re split off into separate tents and even eat different foods.

No prizes for guessing who gets the tastier dinner.

And this doesn't just happen in Asia’s Himalayas but in all the world’s poor mountainous regions – from Africa to South America.

And it’s in that context that Muhammad Hassan’s death is as sickening as it is unsurprising. One where sherpas and porters are treated as second-class human beings.

Being completely fair, a mountain rescue at Muhammad’s altitude and in such snowy conditions probably wouldn't have been best advised or even necessarily possible. But it says everything that so few people bothered to even try.

These men and women adore the mountains they call home. How shameful that Muhammad had to pay with his life just to help others experience that joy.

________________

 

Final moments of tragic K2 porter left to die as mountaineers stepped around him are revealed: Only two climbers tried to help father-of-three as he lay dying for two hours on his first expedition

Muhammad Hassan died after slipping on the mountain on July 27 this year 

 

By James Reynolds and Perkin Amalaraj

 

K2 - pictured from overlooking town Askole in the Gilgit–Baltistan region of Pakistan - gained notoriety as the 'Savage Mountain' after American mountaineer George Bell descended from the peak in 1953

 

Just two climbers tried to help a dying sherpa on the world's second highest mountain as fellow mountaineers edged around.  

Muhammad Hassan, 27, lay seriously injured 1,300ft from the summit of K2 after slipping in a bottle neck area of the mountain on July 27.

The father of three was said to have 'slipped and stayed hanging' with a rope and couldn't 'talk or even hear' as he waited for help.

The expedition was his first working with the group Lela Peak Expedition though it isn't known whether it was his first as a climber.

Anwar Syed, of Lela Peak Expedition, told Mail Online that two climbers 'tried their hardest to bring him down but they couldn't do it and he passed away after two hours'. 

The expedition group claims it offered payment to other porters to retrieve the body but 'everyone said that it's impossible to bring him down'.

Mr Syed said that Mr Hassan was much higher up than three climbers whose bodies were previously deemed unrecoverable from the mountain in Pakistan.

Fellow mountaineers have accused climbers of being more interested in setting records than saving the life of the porter.

Footage shows dozens of fellow climbers carefully edging towards him, risking their lives as they clung to the side of the narrow ledge.

They then clambered around the stricken 27-year-old as they continued up the mountain.

Norway's Kristin Harila and her team who passed by Hassan are among those who have been criticised.

She is also accused of holding a party shortly after clinching the record that saw her climb 14 of the world's highest peaks in just over three months - despite Hassan's death.

She has claimed that she and her team did everything they could to help Hassan but the conditions on K2 were too dangerous to move him. 

But mountaineer Philip Flämig, an Austrian who was climbing with Wilhelm Steindl, said footage the two recorded using a drone shows a trail of climbers walking over the stricken body instead of helping Hassan.

'He is being treated by one person while everyone else is pushing towards the summit.

'The fact is that there was no organised rescue operation although there were Sherpas and mountain guides on site who could have taken action.' 

He called the death a 'disgrace' and said 'such a thing would be unthinkable in the Alps' - referencing the ongoing debate about how Sherpas are used in the Himalayas.

'If he had been a Westerner, he would have been rescued immediately. No one felt responsible for him,' he told the Austrian publication.

'A living human was left lying so that records could be set.'

Harila defended her actions to The Daily Telegraph, saying 'we did all we could for him'.

She added: 'It is simply not true to say that we did nothing to help him. We tried to lift him back up for an hour and a half and my cameraman stayed on for another hour to look after him. At no point was he left alone.'

She said that given the conditions it was unlikely he could be saved as he had fallen on to what was 'probably the most dangerous part of the mountain where the chances of carrying someone off were limited by the narrow trail and poor snow conditions'.

 

Norwegian climber Kristin Harila (pictured) said that she and her team did everything they could to help Hassan but the conditions on K2 were too dangerous to move him

Climbers were just 1,200 ft from the summit of K2, the second tallest mountain in the world

 

The footage of the fatality last month shows people physically climbing over Hassan as he lies helpless in the deep snow. 

The video then pans over to show clouds several thousand feet below them, revealing just how high they were when the footage was taken.

The air is so thin at this elevation that all people seen in the video were wearing oxygen masks. 

It appears that just one person ended up helping him, an unknown rescuer who managed to keep him conscious for a while before he died of his injuries. There was no rescue operation to help the young man. 

Steindl, who participated in the climb but had returned to the base camp earlier due to the dangerous conditions, also told Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf that he was sickened by the inaction of the fellow climbers.

'It was a very heated, competitive race to the top. What happened there is scandalous.

'A living person is left behind so records can be set. It only took 3 or 4 people to save him. Had I seen it, I would have climbed up to help the poor man.' 

Despite these strong claims, differing accounts of the tragedy have circulated, leading to uncertainty over exactly what took place all the way up K2. 

Lakpa Sherpa, a mountaineer who was on the climb and took the video, told MailOnline that the footage doesn't capture what actually happened: 

'Some of the climbers and Sherpas tried to save his life although he passed away. 

'The climbers have all spent a lot of money to do this climb and there is the value of time too for the climb. Hundreds of climbers tried to save him but they cannot give up their mission. 

'The reality is they have tried to save the life and this is below the great serace bottle neck, where it's impossible to cross without rope so it's a very difficult situation. 

'Many climbers and sherpas told him to go back as he had very poor equipment and was not well equipped and also there was very bad weather during the summit window but he did not listen and then he fell down. 

'It was very difficult to bring the body down. They have to summit the mountain. There's only a little chance for them.' 

Bulgarian climber Silvia Azdreeva, who was on the trip when Hassan died, said in a Facebook post that climbing K2 is not for the faint-hearted: 'On K2 there is no one to save you that fast, you'll have to wait for days if something happens to you. 

'This mountain is not for everyone. K2 has a very heavy character.'

 

Bulgarian climber Silvia Azdreeva said: 'This mountain is not for everyone. K2 has a very heavy character'

 

Shockingly, Wilhelm Steindl claimed that a party was held shortly after Mr. Hassan died in celebration of Kristin Harila, a Norwegian woman who set a new world record after she climbed the 14 of the world's highest peaks in just over 3 months.

'I didn't go, I was disgusted. Someone had just died up there,' the furious climber said.

He revealed in a GoFundMe set up for Mr. Hassan's family that he leaves behind three children and a wife, as well as an elderly grandmother. 

At time of publication, the page has already raised £63,000.

The newly-crowned world record holder Kristin Harila said of the tragedy: 'My heart and thoughts and prayers go out to the family and loved ones of Hassan and I feel very sad about this whole situation.'

K2 is considered to be the world's most dangerous mountain as it has a fatality rate of around 19 per cent compared to just 6.5 per cent on Everest, according to estimates.

For every 20 people who summit Everest, only one summits K2 and there are inherently more risks.

Routes on K2 are not as defined or well laid out with the climb being much more technical with a combination of rock, ice and alpine climbing - and avalanches are also much more common.

The mountain gained notoriety as the 'Savage Mountain' after American mountaineer George Bell came down from the peak in 1953 where he nearly slipped to his death.

'It's a savage mountain that tries to kill you,' he observed following his traitorous climb.