Climber dies on Broad Peak

A MISSING Russian-American climber died on a mountain while preparing to scale the world’s 12thhighest peak, having refused to turn back in dangerous winter conditions, a spokesman for the expedition said on Tuesday (19).

Alex Goldfarb pushed on alone when his teammate failed to persuade him to give up during an acclimatising mission, ahead of a bid to scale the nearby 8,051-metre Broad Peak in the Karakoram range on the Chinese border.

Broad Peak is one of the so-called “8,000s”, the 14 mountains higher than 8,000 metres. “We are deeply saddened to have lost our climbing partner and friend,” said Laszlo Pinter, spokesman for the Broad Peak Winter Expedition 2021.

“The helicopter search mission has found his body on Pastore Peak where he is presumed to have fallen off the mountain,” he said in a statement.

It has been a bittersweet week for the climbing community, which saw 10 Nepali climbers scale K2 for the first time in winter – but also the death of Spanish climber Sergi Mingote on the same mountain.

His body was evacuated from base camp last Sunday (17).

Despite being famed for their climbing expertise, there has never before been a Nepali climber on the first winter ascent of a peak higher than 8,000 metres.

The 10 climbers reached the top of the world’s second-highest mountain last Saturday (16), the last peak above 8,000 metres (26,000 feet) to be conquered in wintertime.

K2 is known as the “Savage Mountain” because of its punishing conditions: winds can blow at more than 200 kilometres per hour (125 miles per hour), and temperatures can drop to minus 60 degrees Celsius (minus 76 Fahrenheit).

The descent can be just as dangerous as going up.