DOVERIDGE WI

AFTER our long and hot summer which now seems to have come to an end, we met for our September meeting

Our two joint presidents were away, so Alice Wheaton, our vice president took the meeting.

There were lots of notices as we hadn’t met for a while and we wished some of our members happy birthday and spoke of much sadder news of some.

Then our speaker for the evening Vince Williams spoke about K2, the secondhighest mountain in the world at 8,611m above sea level, situated on the borders of China, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

It is known as the savage mountain as it has taken over 80 lives. That is where Vince’s story really begins. Jeff Lakes was the only survivor when seven others climbers were swept to their death by terrible weather conditions.

Jeff made it back to base camp against all odds, but sadly his body had been starved of oxygen for too long and he died of exhaustion on August 15, 1995.

Jeff’s son Jerry asked Vince, a distant relative of his, and David, his then son-inlaw, to go with him. Although both part of a mountain search and rescue team in Wales, they had little idea of what lay ahead.

Some two years later they flew to Skardu and used vehicles not unlike our jeeps to journey some 20 hours to the last settlement before the real journey started and they met Ejaz, who would head their trek.

Vince showed us many fantastic photos of K2 and the surrounding high mountains.

After a long dangerous trek over the Baltoro Glacier of over 100 miles, they arrived at the base camp of K2, where they laid a plaque in memory of Jeff on a memorial made of stones by people who had made this trip before them. Another being remembered was Alison Hargreaves.

Hilary thanked Vince for his very informative talk and asked him to judge the competition, a mountain photograph, which Alice Wheaton won.

Kay Robinson won the raffle and Alice thanked the ladies for the refreshments and the flowers. We do hope our visitors will return next month to hear David Bell speak about “The Plague Doctor”.