Reuters
ISLAMABAD - Days after 11 fellow climbers were killed on K2, an Italian refused to succumb to frostbite and exhaustion as he stumbled down the world's second highest mountain on Monday in the hope of being airlifted to safety.
"Of course, of course, I'll keep going. Imagine if I gave up now," Marco Confortola was quoted as saying by the head of an Italian mountaineering group who spoke to him from northern Italy via satellite telephone.
Three Pakistani high altitude porters and an American climber had set off up the mountain to try to bring Confortola down to a height where he could be reached by a rescue helicopter.
Agostino Da Polenza, head of the Ev-K2-CNR mountaineering group, said the 37-year-old climber had reached Base Camp 1 at just over 6,000 meters (19,680 feet). by nightfall, meaning he would likely have to spend another night on the mountain.
Confortola's feet were in "very bad" shape but he appeared to have saved his hands.
A Pakistani army helicopter had earlier plucked two Dutch climbers off the slopes of the remote 8,611 meter (28,240 foot) peak, deep in the Karakoram range, bordering China.
Pakistani authorities confirmed that 11 climbers were dead but rescuers were unsure whether anyone else was missing.
Anxious fellow climbers kept vigil at K2 base camp, scanning the steep flanks of the towering pyramid of rock and ice.
Among the dead were three Koreans; two Nepalis; two Pakistani high altitude porters; French, Serbian, and Norwegian climbers; and an Irishman earlier listed as missing.
Several died when an ice wall collapsed and tore away the fixed lines they were relying on to return after reaching the summit of K2 on Friday.
Others succumbed in the freezing, oxygen-starved air, stranded at an altitude known as the "Death Zone."
Several teams had massed on the mountain for an assault on the summit. At least two climbers died during the ascent, then disaster struck during the descent at a steep gully known as the Bottleneck, above 8,200 meters.
The ice fall killed three Korean and two Nepali climbers, and left around a dozen more, exhausted from the ascent, stranded in the thin air above the Bottleneck.
Wilco van Rooijen, the rescued leader of a Dutch team that lost at least three members, recounted to Reuters from his hospital bed in the northern Pakistani town of Skardu how he slept without a sleeping bag, food or water.
Van Rooijen said he was screaming instructions for people to work together, but they appeared consumed by self-preservation.
"They were thinking of my gas, my rope, whatever," he said. "Actually everybody was fighting for himself and I still do not understand why everybody was leaving each other."
Some tried to find their own way off a mountain where anyone who goes missing almost inevitably dies.
"People were running down but didn't know where to go, so a lot of people were lost on the mountain on the wrong side, wrong route, and then you have a big problem and then things like that happen," van Rooijen said.
One Swedish survivor, Fredrik Strang, had earlier described to U.S. broadcaster CNN how people "froze to death" during the night and spoke of a sense of foreboding after a Serbian climber and a Pakistani plunged to their deaths on the ascent.
'Summit fever'
Questions will inevitably arise over whether the climbers' judgment was fatally clouded by desire to reach the summit, a condition known in mountaineering circles as "summit fever."
Some teams summited in darkness after 8.00 p.m., according to Nazir Sabir, president of the Alpine Club of Pakistan.
Critics spoke of summit fever in the wake of the previous deadliest day in K2's history, August 13, 1995, when six people fell or disappeared during a storm, including British female climber Alison Hargreaves.
Risks multiplied when small teams made simultaneous summit bids, according to veteran Pakistani mountaineer Sher Khan.
His old climbing partner, the legendary Italian alpinist Reinhold Messner told Reuters in Italy that commercial mountaineering had led to more fatalities as inexperienced people, regardless of their strength, faced situations without knowing how to react.
Certainly, van Rooijen was full of recriminations.
"The biggest mistake we made was that we tried to make agreements. Everybody had his own responsibility and then some people did not do what they promised," the Dutchman said.
More than 70 climbers have died on K2. In mountaineering records the ones who lost their lives after conquering the mountain have an asterisk by their name.