K2 Climbing Tragedy Diagrams and Illustrations
The avalanche on K2 last week is being called the worst mountaineering disaster ever on the mountain, the world’s second-tallest peak. 11 climbers were killed as they tried to make their way across a treacherous section of the mountain called “The Bottleneck.”
The New York Times posted these illustrations of the mountain and the avalanche area, to give us a better feel for what happened. One climber died on the summit attempt and a porter was killed trying to claim his body. The avalanche didn’t happen until the climbers who had reached the summit were making their descent. The falling snow killed some climbers and severed anchored lines, trapping others in the frigid, low-oxygen “Dead Zone.”
When I told my friends I was running the 
When Erin and I boarded the overnight, eighteen-hour bus ride from Tarija to La Paz, we were not sure what to expect. Our day of arrival into Bolivia had been a rough one with a long half-day at the hot, dusty border outpost of Bermejo, waiting several hours for a visa at the immigration office and several hours more for a windy bus ride north to Tarija. But once in Tarija, we had a very comfortable and relaxing week-long stay in the home of Perales family. We were not sure what to expect next – tough or easy. It turned out to be a bit of both.
It’s been almost a year since legendary adventurer Steve Fossett went missing while flying over of a remote area of Nevada desert. He was never found and reports are now surfacing that the whole thing may have been an elaborate sham. Steve Fossett may have faked his own death.
