Sad news from K2 where a team of researchers have discovered the remains of a fallen climber, but no one has been able to identify him or her just yet. A request for help has been sent out to the mountaineering community in the hopes of determining just who was found on the mountain.According to this story at Montagna.tv, Michele Cucchi and Paolo Petrignani – working in conjunction with Pakistani guides – were in Base Camp on K2 a couple of weeks back. The team had traveled there to record the current state of the glaciers in that area, and the impact of environmental change on their health. The group climbed up to ABC and could see the damage done by a massive avalanche that hit Camp 3 back in July, sweeping away tents, fixed ropes, and a cache of bottled oxygen. The avalanche effectively brought an end to the K2 climbing season, sending all of the teams there home without a single summit.
Amongst the rubble Cucchi discovered a few oxygen bottles, the remains of several tents, and a human body under a thin layer of ice. The corpse was wearing a Millet boot that was reportedly a size 8 (pictured here). The boot is a recent model, which suggests the accident took place fairly recently as well, but the person who was found remains unidentified at this time. If you can potentially ID this person, you're urged to contact Montagna.tv as soon as possible.
As is tradition on K2, the remains of the climber were taken to the Gilkey Memorial where all of the victims of the "Savage Mountain" are laid to rest. This has been the case sine 1953 and it continues to this day.
Hopefully someone in the mountaineering community will see this story and help identify the unknown climber.
