Reprinted articles and stories associated with the recent K2 tragedy.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2008/08/05/todd.k2.dangers.cnn?iref=videosearch

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0806/p06s01-wosc.html?page=1

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/07/world/asia/07k2.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

We learned that the first person was dead when we were baking the cake. By the time I blew the candles out, the second person was dying. This was my fourth birthday celebrated in Pakistan, and like all the others it was more painful than fun.

Chris left Camp 1 at approximately 4:15 AM with the rest of the team following in trace forty-five minutes later.  It was quickly apparent that this was not going to be an "average" day in the mountains.  Due to the warm weather and afternoon rain showers followed by freezing temperatures in the Diamar Valley and lower elevations of Nanga Parbat, our day would be spent climbing almost twenty five hundred feet of vertical ice.

I think the attitude with which you begin an event can often decide the fate of the player even before the game begins. At least that was true of our first hike up the mountain to Camp 1.

Base Camps on mountain expeditions can present in a variety of ways: on snow, on rock, or in our case on a beautiful terraced meadow perched on the flanks of Nanga Parbat. It is summer here so the wildflowers are abundant and spectacular, providing a rich colorful landscape for strolling from the dining tent, to the sleeping tent, to the communications tent, to the shower tent.  Drinking, cooking, and cleaning water come from a crystal clear glacial spring that runs 100 feet behind our dining tent.