Climber accused of stepping over dying Sherpa in pursuit of K2 record

Kristin Harila denied the allegations, saying her team never left the Sherpa alone. The team climbed over a dying Sherpa, scaled Pakistan's Mount K2 and set a new world record.

Photos of climbers clambering past a wounded Pakistani man on a treacherous ridge while climbing Norwegian Kristin Harila were condemned by fellow climbers. .

They argued that a western climber would not be left to die and said scenes in the Alps would be unthinkable, sparking an argument about how local Sherpas are being used in the Himalayas.

37-year-old Harila climbed the Pakistani K2. July 27, ranking 14th in altitude in just three months and becoming the fastest climber in the world to conquer all peaks above 8000 meters.

During the ascent, the porter Mohammed Hassan fell off a sheer edge at the top of the mountain. an area known as a bottleneck, about 8,200 meters high.

Ms Harila said her team did everything they could to rescue Mr Hasan, but the conditions were too dangerous for him to be moved .

However, two climbers who were also on K2 that day stated that their fellow climbers were more interested in setting records than in saving lives. apparent excavations at Harila.

Austrian climbing duo Wilhelm Steindl and Philip Flemig say footage they later recorded with a drone shows climbers walking over his body rather than trying to save him.

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“The drone footage shows it all,” Mr. Flemig told the Austrian newspaper Standard.

“He is being treated by one person while everyone else is racing to the top. The fact is that no organized rescue operation was carried out, although there were Sherpas and mountain guides on the spot who could take action.

Among those who passed by him was Mrs. Harila.

“If he were a Westerner, he would have been rescued immediately. Nobody felt responsible for him,” he said.

Some pedestrians say Pakistani porters are treated like expendables. Photo: 8K Expeditions /Lakpa Sherpa

“What happened there is a shame. The living person was left lying down so records could be set,” he said.

Ms Harila defended her actions on Thursday, saying her team did everything they could to save Mr Hassan.

< p>“It's just not true to say that we did nothing to help him. We tried to get it back up for an hour and a half and my operator stayed for another hour to look after it. In no case was he left alone,” she told The Telegraph.

“Given the conditions, it is difficult to see how he could have been saved. He fell in what was probably the most dangerous part of the mountain, where the chances of taking someone away were limited by the narrow path and poor snow conditions,” she said.

She also denied that Mr. Hasan would have been treated differently if he were a western climber.

“We did everything we could for him,” she said.

Mr. Hassan, who is not on this image, took this job to pay for the care of his mother. Photo: JOE STENSON/AFP

Reports from several climbers have raised questions about the standard of equipment Mr. Hassan was given before he set off up the mountain ahead of western climbers who often pay thousands of dollars to climb with a guide.

“If he were my Sherpa, I wouldn't send him in this condition,” she said.

According to Mr. Steindl, who visited the porter's family after descending the mountain, Mr. Hassan took on the dangerous job of setting up the rope, to pay the medical bills of her diabetic mother. , although he didn't have the experience to do the job.

“His family can't afford medicine or food. Ms. Harila and many climbers flew over us and our family in helicopters. What a symbolic image. A helicopter to take off costs up to $12,000 per person,” he said.

Thaneswar Gurugai, general manager of the Seven Summits that organized the Harila hike, told the Telegraph that Hasan suffered from frostbite and hyperthermia when he died.

«In normal cases, [other bearers] would have rescued them, unless that was not possible.»