K2 attempt: Russian climber dies in Skardu base camp

Expedition team was expecting to make summit attempt by mid-March.

SKARDU:

A Russian climber, who had lost his fingers earlier due to frostbite on the world’s second highest peak, died due to breathing difficulties on Tuesday.

“Vitaliy Gorelik died in the base camp,” Sakhi Hassan, a mountaineer, told The Express Tribune on Tuesday.

Gorelik was part of the 15-member winter mountaineering team that abandoned the attempt to climb K2 after the tragedy. According to climbers, the temperature on K2 drops to minus 50 degrees Celsius in winters, which is why the peak still has not been conquered during winters so far.

The expedition team was on K2 since late December and was expecting to make a summit attempt by mid March.

With a height of 8,611 metres, K2 is part of the Karakoram Range and is located on the border between Baltistan and Azad Kashmir. The 8,611 metre-high K2, known as the Savage Mountain because of the danger it poses to climbers, has the second highest fatality rate among the “eight thousanders”.

According to reports, Gorelik couldn’t be flown to Skardu town from the base camp due to bad weather.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 8^th, 2012.