Colorado climber scales Mount Everest but dies while making arduous descent
DENVER — A Colorado climber died shortly after getting to the top of Mount Everest and achieving his dream of scaling the highest peaks on each of the seven continents, his brother said Monday.
Christopher Kulish, a 62year-old Boulder attorney, died Monday at a camp below the summit during his descent. The cause isn’t yet known, said his brother, Mark Kulish of Denver.
Christopher Kulish had just reached the top of Everest with a small group after crowds of hundreds of climbers congested the 29,035-foot peak last week, his brother said.
“He saw his last sunrise from the highest peak on Earth. At that instant, he became a member of the ‘7 Summit Club,’ having scaled the highest peak on each continent,” Mark Kulish said in a statement.
He described his brother as an attorney in his “day job” who was “an inveterate climber of peaks in Colorado, the West and the world over.”
“He passed away doing what he loved, after returning to the next camp below the peak,” Mark Kulish said.
About half a dozen climbers died on Everest last week, including Don Cash of Utah, who also had fulfilled his dream of climbing the highest mountains on each continent. Most of them died while descending from the summit during only a few windows of good weather each May.
Most are believed to have suffered from altitude sickness, which is caused by low amounts of oxygen at high elevation and can cause headaches, vomiting, shortness of breath and mental confusion.
There are 41 teams with a total of 378 climbers permitted to scale Everest during the spring climbing season. An equal number of Nepalese guides are helping them get to the top.
At least 10 people have died trying to reach the summit of the world’s tallest mountain this year, the deadliest climbing season for the peak in four years. One factor contributing to this year’s toll appears to have been crowding as scores of people attempted to ascend in a short window of good weather.
Now officials in Nepal are reviewing whether to change the way access to Everest works. Some experts say that the government should extend the climbing season in May or implement certain requirements for climbers, a number of whom lack experience.
Nirmal Purja, an accomplished climber who is attempting to summit 14 peaks worldwide within seven months, was on his way down from the summit at Everest when he decided to stop and photograph the scene behind him. It was unusually cold, he said, and extraordinarily crowded.
“I’ve seen traffic, but not this crazy,” said Purja, who has summited Everest four times. Purja is among those who believe that the solution is to lengthen the traditional climbing season at Everest to spread out the climbers attempting to reach the summit.
Because of the crowds, some climbers took longer than normal to make their way up the mountain. One of them was Nihal Bhagwan, a 27-year old Indian man who died of dehydration, exhaustion and highaltitude sickness, said Keshav Paudel of Peak Promotions, the expedition company guiding Bhagwan’s trip.