Tragedy on K2
Thursday June 25, 2009 - Email this article to a friend

More details have emerged about the death of the Italian extreme skier, Michele Fait. He died on K2 while on an expedition to ski down the mountain. His climbing partner Fredrik Ericsson has been writing a regular blog on the trip for PlanetSKI.

The 2 men were on an acclimatisation trip when the accident happened. They were on C2 on the SSE spur when 44 year-old Michele caught an edge on ice and then hit some rocks.

He fell around 1,000m to his death.

We have not had confirmation of the tragic accident from Fredrik but have been piecing together what happened from the blogs of other mountaineers on K2 and other sources.

We heard rumours of the death last night and some more concrete information first thing this morning.

K2It appears Fredrik was lower than Michele at the time and took 20 minutes to get to his body where it appears Michele had already died.

Fredrik had help from the leader of another climbing party and Michele's body was found in a crevace.

They were unable to get Michele’s body off the mountain due to a risk of avalanche.

The pair had already put in a second camp and were at an altitude of 6,700m. K2 stands at 8,611m

We received this updated blog from Fredrik earlier in the week where the 2 men were in high spirits about their task ahead,

They were planning to climb and then ski down the 2nd highest mountain in the world. For Fredrik it was his first peak of 3 as he was planning to ski the 3 highest mountains in the world K2, Everest and Kangchenjunga. We have full details of the plan here.

We will bring you more news on the tragic accident as we get it.

These incidents always raise the question of why people attempt such dangerous taks. Of all these high altitude ski descents around 50% of people are thought to perish.

However without man's buring desire to do such things then many exploration and climbing achievements would not have been accomplished.

Update at 13.30 - We have heard that his body has been taken off the mountain with the help of some other climbers and Michele has been buried on K2 with 9 people at the simple but highly emotional ceremony.

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