10 Mountain Climbing Disasters Deadlier Than The Everest Movie
4. A Race To The Top Turns Deadly On The Way Down – 2008
The Mountain: K2, aka “Savage Mountain,” is the second-highest mountain on Earth. One in four mountaineers are said to die on descent.
# of Deaths: 11
The Story: While promoting his K2 tragedy documentary Summit at the Sundance Film Festival, director Nick Ryan told Outside Magazine, “I was drawn to what seemed to me at the time the pure insanity of why people go and climb these mountains. There was an element of trying to understand but also to try and get to the bottom of the events themselves.”
What happened on K2 on August 1, 2008 was the single worst day in K2 history. Aiming to take advantage of some fortunate weather conditions, many climbers attempted to reach the summit the same time. In the end, 11 members of a 25-person international expedition died. The first to perish fell 100 meters (328 feet) after losing his balance, and the next to go was actually someone attempting to recover the first victim’s corpse. That was just on the climb to the top.
A total of 18 reached the summit and began their decent at 8:30 PM at which point falling ice cut all of their lines, instantly killing one climber. The rest were stranded above 8000 meters (26,246 feet), and quickly began panicking and fighting for self-preservation. Some wandered into the darkness, and others set up temporary overnight camps, unsure who was in charge anymore. On the descent to the bottom, one fell to his death and 7 others were knocked off by more falling ice. The dead hailed from Korea, Pakistan, Nepal, Ireland, Norway, France and Serbia. Summit actually contains real footage from the climb as several members of the expedition were recording their progress, clearly unaware disaster was about to strike.