I lost my brave mum and brother on the mountains ... but they’re the only place I can ever feel close to them again
Heartbreaking story of a family cruelly torn apart by their love of conquering the world’s highest peaks
AGAINST a breathtaking backdrop of Himalayan grandeur, Kate Ballard calmly moves through a series of yoga poses. Behind her, a jagged row of snow-covered peaks – some of the tallest in the world – bite into a clear blue sky. Suddenly the serenity is disturbed by the thundering roar of an avalanche – yards from her, thousands of tons of snow cascade down the slope with unstoppable force.
It is a terrifying spectacle and a stark reminder that amid the beauty lurks everpresent danger.
For the 30-year-old, it is also a stark reminder of unimaginable grief – for these are the mountains that claimed the life not only of her mother, but also her brother.
Miss Ballard was just four years old when her mother, the celebrated Scottish climber Alison Hargreaves, died while descending from the summit of the world’s secondhighest mountain, K2.
Then, two years ago, Miss Ballard’s older brother Tom – who became one of the world’s best climbers despite the tragedy of his mother’s death – also died, while attempting a previously unclimbed route on a mountain just 100 miles away.
Climbing may well be in her blood, but the double loss has given Miss Ballard a complex relationship with the mountains.
In a new documentary charting her poignant pilgrimage to the area where her mother and brother died, she reflects on the irresistible lure of high places – despite the risks.
SHE said: ‘It’s the aura, the purity, the open vast sky, you can see forever and the mountains have this awesome power. I just feel so happy from inside, I can’t stop smiling. Even though it’s horrible circumstances, it doesn’t take away the beauty and joy of this place.’ Family history certainly suggests Miss Ballard may be hard-wired for a love of the mountains.
Not only was her mother hailed as one of the greatest female climbers of all time, her father is Jim Ballard, himself an accomplished mountaineer, now in his 70s.
Although Miss Ballard and Tom were born in Derbyshire, the family relocated to Fort William, Inverness-shire, in the 1990s, to be closer to Ben Nevis, Britain’s highest peak, where Ms Hargreaves trained for the harsher conditions of the Himalayas.
And although critics questioned whether it was right for a mother of young children to risk so much, it is clear Ms Hargreaves kept Kate and Tom in her thoughts, even as she tackled the mountaineering world’s toughest challenges.
On May 13, 1995, Ms Hargreaves became the first female climber to conquer Mount Everest without the aid of bottled oxygen or teams of sherpas.
In a wheezing radio message from the thin air of the 29,000ft summit she proudly declared: ‘To Tom and Kate, my children, I am on the highest point in the world and I love them dearly.’
In August the same year, she was on course to cement her status as a climbing legend when she battled, solo and unsupported, to the 28,000ft summit of K2 in the Karakoram range of Pakistan.
But tragedy struck when she died in a ferocious blizzard during her descent from the peak.
Her body was never recovered – only a bloodstained coat, a climbing boot and her harness.
In the immediate aftermath of their mother’s death, Tom, then just six, asked that the family travel to the Karakoram to see for themselves the mountain that had claimed her life.
Footage from the trip shows the siblings’ father, who now lives in France, telling a young Miss Ballard not to be sad. Pointing to a cloud that looks like an angel’s wing above K2, the little girl innocently asks: ‘Is that mummy, daddy?’
Cradling her on his knee, he replies ‘I think it’s a sign your mum knows you’re here.’
Now an adult herself, Miss Ballard looks back at the loss of a mother she was almost too young to remember with philosophical resignation.
In the documentary, she admits she cannot distinguish between real memories and what she learned of her mother’s feats from watching archive footage.
She explained: ‘I don’t know how much I remember of my mum and how much I know of her from film, magazines and newspapers and stories that my dad has told me.
‘It’s difficult to differentiate what’s my true memories and what’s come from outside.’
She said: ‘Of course I wish my mum hadn’t died, but at the same time I am so proud of what she achieved. The way I see the universe is that, when we get to a stage
of our life where something, a higher power, wants to claim us back, then whether you are crossing a road in a city or on a mountain, it is going to happen.’
After their mother’s death, their loss intensified rather than diminished the call of the mountains for Miss Ballard and her brother. In her own right she is a keen and experienced climber, extreme snowboarder and paraglider.
Meanwhile, her brother pursued their mother’s dream. Where she was the first mountaineer to climb the six major alpine north faces solo in a single summer season, her son became the first to achieve this in a single winter season. In 2019 he set out to conquer a previously unclimbed route to the summit of the world’s ninth highest mountain, Nanga Parbat on the western fringe of the Himalayas, just over 100 miles away from his mother’s final resting place on K2.
Along with an Italian climber, he tackled a steep ridge called the Mummery Spur towards the 26,600ft summit.
The pair last made radio contact with their team at base camp on February 24, as they tried to reach the summit.
After that, there was only an ominous silence.
After days of no communication that turned into weeks, teams travelled to the incredibly remote area to try to find the climbers.
EVENTUALLY, following an exhaustive search, their bodies were spotted on March 9, 2019, but could not be recovered. In their grief, Miss Ballard and her father took comfort in the belief Tom and his partner had died swiftly, struck by a falling serac, or massive block of ice.
Months after her brother’s death, Miss Ballard sought solace by heading to Nanga Parbat.
En route she met the Italian ambassador to Pakistan, who had supervised the search and rescue effort after her brother and his climbing partner were reported as missing. Rather than being killed instantaneously in an ice fall, he outlined a far more harrowing possible cause of their deaths – that the climbers had tumbled and then become caught in their ropes.
Dangling thousands of feet in the air, powerless and trapped, they could have slowly frozen to death as temperatures on the mountain dropped to -50C.
In the documentary, which charts her trip to Nanga Parbat, a tearful Miss Ballard breaks down as she confronts the horrific possibilities of her brother’s death.
‘Of course we didn’t ever think we knew exactly what had happened,’ she said.
‘But the story we took on board was that they climbed, they went to bed in their tent, probably very cold up at that altitude, and sometime during the night while they were peacefully asleep, probably dreaming about climbing, that serac from high above them broke off and the force just ripped them straight out of their tent and threw them off the mountain.
‘They’d have died immediately on impact from the force, just as we believe happened to mum.’
The news that the climbers could actually have died a slow and lingering death was a colossal shock.
She added: ‘To have heard that they were hanging, dangling, dying slowly, fully aware of what was going on – his exact words were that it was a “cruel death” – that’s really big news.’
In tears, she said: ‘I could be happier and live easier knowing that he was at peace but to hear that he could have been really suffering for a long time and we couldn’t get to them is heart-breaking.’
Miss Ballard then embarked on the five-day journey by car and foot to the base camp below Nanga Parbat.
She said: ‘I’m happy Tom and my mum are here. It’s the most beautiful place in the world and it’s where they wanted to be.’
As she approached the base camp she marvelled over the size of Nanga Parbat.
In awe, Miss Ballard said: ‘It’s breathtaking. I can understand why he wanted to climb it, I want to climb it too.’ She described her brother – who would have turned 31 during the trip – as ‘a mountaineer through and through’, adding: ‘He was born to be on the mountains.’
SHE talked of his ‘genius’ and her jealousy as a teenager of his talent, drive and passion for climbing – a gift that he inherited from their mother – and how he focused solely on mountaineering.
And although the mountains robbed her of her mother as a young child and of her big brother, she still takes solace in them.
Wistfully, she added: ‘Although her physical form is not here, I feel her in every way and especially in the mountains.
‘Now with Tom also being lost here I have to spend even more time here because it’s where they are.’
Speaking of her trip to her brother’s last climb and looking on to the mountain range that is now his grave, she takes comfort that her mum and brother are together forever and at peace.
She said: ‘I wanted to embrace the mountain, I wanted to see what he had seen, try and understand what went through his mind and try to get a grasp of how he might have felt being here.
‘I have completely achieved that and I know what’s happened. I know where he’s gone. I know his body is never coming back. But his spirit will live forever.
‘It will live on in me and in the mountains and everyone that was ever close to him.
‘It’s almost like mum is cradling him and they will be together forever now.’
● The Last Mountain is on BBC2 at 9pm tonight.
His body is never coming back but his spirit will live forever