driftwood

By Guy McCarthy

It's been a while since a really hard rain in or above Mill Creek Canyon.

But you can always find evidence of previous floods here.

The rock-filled canyon is a cleft between two steep mountain ridges in southwest San Bernardino County, about 80 miles east of Los Angeles. Elevation at the location pictured is roughly 6,080 feet above sea level.

Looking east toward Galena Peak, elevation 9,324 feet, the San Gorgonio Wilderness rises on the left to the highest mountain spine in Southern California. The flat-back summit of San Gorgonio Mountain stands at 11,499 feet, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Galena Peak is named in Spanish for the mineral lead. Miners years ago gave this utilitarian name to several mountains across the Western states. This particular Galena Peak is the easternmost high point of Yucaipa Ridge on the right, which forms the south wall of Mill Creek Canyon.

Geologists who specialize in tectonics, plate movement, and active faults say Yucaipa Ridge is one of the fastest-rising ridges in Southern California, squeezed by the San Andreas on one side and by the Mill Creek Fault beneath the boulder-strewn alley seen here.

With steep walls composed of tectonically shattered rock and vast watersheds rising up to 5,000 vertical feet above this point, Mill Creek Canyon is prone to periodic events of radical erosion. When it rains hard on the slopes above, this canyon literally spews mud and boulders. The tree trunks in the foreground are weathered and smooth, in part from transport to this spot.

The photo was taken today, just east of Vivian Creek trailhead.

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killer mountains

Photo by Aitor Las Hayas

By Guy McCarthy

In a rare moment captured forever in time, a group of climbers stood on top of K2 breathing heavily in thin air, muttering in wonder.

Karl Unterkircher's team video taken in July 2004 is a surreal glimpse of a region where only a few hundred mortals have been.

On that day, Unterkircher, an accomplished high-altitude alpinist from Italy, helped commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first recorded ascent of K2 - by his countrymen Lino Lacedelli and Achille Compagnoni. Unterkircher also reportedly became the first ever to climb K2 and Mount Everest, the world's highest two mountains, without oxygen in the same season. He'd climbed Everest just 63 days before.

But less than a month ago, Unterkircher was killed when he fell into a crevasse high on Nanga Parbat, another of the world's deadliest mountains. More than 30 people reportedly died trying to climb 26,810-foot Nanga Parbat before Hermann Buhl made the first ascent in 1953.

The world's ninth-highest summit, Nanga Parbat is known among some climbers as the "Killer Mountain."

Unterkircher was 37. His death on July 15 barely made a ripple in world news compared to the most recent high-altitude disasters on K2.

But his team's video from July 26 2004 sheds light on what some of the 11 killed starting Aug. 1 on K2 may have experienced before they met their deaths.

Meanwhile, Hermosa Beach-based climber Nicholas Rice is still making his way from K2 and the Karakoram Range in northern Pakistan to Islamabad, according to a close friend of Rice in Sherman Oaks.

Rice, 23, who survived one of the deadliest episodes in mountaineering history less than two weeks ago, was struggling Monday during the trek with a team of porters to Skardu due to a possibly torn foot muscle, said Simon Weaver, who spoke to Rice that day. Rice may have to take a bus to Islamabad, leaving limited time for an expedition debriefing with the Pakistani military, Weaver said.

Rice's inquisitors in Islamabad are sure to ask many of the same basic questions people in high-altitude climbing circles are asking around the world. What happened? And why?

The K2 accidents of August 2008 are off most news consumers' radar by now.

But in the homelands of 11 dead climbers - Serbia, South Korea, Norway, France, Ireland, Nepal and Pakistan - and in Holland, home of one of the ill-fated expeditions' primary sponsors - some people can't get enough news about K2's recent tragedies.

Norit, a water purification corporation based in Zenderen, the Netherlands, last issued a public statement about the Norit K2 Expedition 2008 on Aug. 5, confirming the death of team member Gerard McDonnell, 37, the first Irishman to summit K2.

Norit's statement also mentioned the rescue of Norit climbers Wilco van Rooijen and Cas van de Gevel, who were flown by helicopter to Skardu with severe frostbite.

Rolf Bae, 33, of Norway, was among the reported fatalities. This week a Norwegian on-line news site, Dagbladet.no, published a photo Rice provided to Watershed News that shows a tiny line of climbers ascending the Bottleneck couloir below K2's summit on Aug. 1.

Another site, Team Geared Up, which tries to reach outdoor enthusiasts in Ireland, Wales, Scotland, England, Italy, France, Switzerland and the United States, published the same photo on Saturday Aug. 9.

Rice told me in an e-mail last week the photo was taken just after Serbian climber Dren Mandic fell. A Pakistani climber and high-altitude porter named Jehan Baig was reportedly ordered to help recover Mandic's body, but Baig also fell to his death.

Whatever the Bottleneck photo ends up meaning, for now it shows some of the climbers who reportedly made it to K2's summit, only to die later on their descent. Part of a massive serac - known to some as the "balcony" and clearly visible in many K2 photos over the years - broke off, swept a number of climbers to their deaths, and cut fixed ropes that left others stranded in the so-called death zone above 8,000 meters.

Van Rooijen and Van de Gevel managed to make it down the post-avalanche Bottleneck, as did at least two others. But McDonnell and Rice's expedition leader, Hugues d'Aubarede of France, were reportedly among those unable to descend.

Unterkircher's team video starts just below the Bottleneck and ends on the summit. With limited evidence in the public realm so far of the recent tragedies, this video at least shows what many of the 11 killed this month had a fleeting glimpse of before they perished.

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NOTE:

Climber, film-maker and Karakoram historian Jim Curran, who documented a 1986 expedition on K2's northwest ridge, said this week in a phone interview he remains concerned about the latest tragedies. The 1986 season on K2 was the deadliest to date, with 13 climbers killed in a series of incidents.

Curran, author of "K2: Triumph and Tragedy" and "K2: Story of the Savage Mountain," said Monday he has been swamped with calls and interview requests since news of the recent deaths began making world headlines.

"It sounds like there were commercial expeditions on the mountain," said Curran, now 65, speaking from Sheffield, England. "If that's the case, I think they're putting a lot of people out on a limb. . . . Any time you have inexperienced people on the mountain, you're asking for trouble."

high-altitude graveyard

Photo by Renatto Sottsass

By Guy McCarthy

In case you're still wondering what happened to 11 high-altitude climbers who died on K2 in Pakistan last week, here's a bit more perspective - including some from a person who made it to the top of the so-called Savage Mountain in 1993.

Phil Powers, now 47 and executive director of the American Alpine Club in Golden, Colo., got down alive that day.

But he lost a climbing companion in the Bottleneck couloir - where so many others recently perished - so the tragedies a week ago brought 15-year-old memories back to life.

The photo above shows an approach to the Bottleneck couloir high on K2. It was taken during a 2004 expedition to mark the 50th anniversary of the first recorded ascent of the Savage Mountain. The successful Italian team in 1954 included Lino Lacedelli, Achille Compagnoni and Walter Bonatti.

Compagnoni and Lacedelli made the summit and Bonatti did not, under controversial circumstances. But Bonatti, the youngest member of that team, went on to prove himself the greatest climber of his generation, according to alpine historians.

One Italian died of pneumonia in Camp II, about 19,000 feet elevation, on that 1954 expedition. Two Americans and three Sherpas had already died on previous K2 expeditions, in 1939 and 1953, according to K2 historian Jim Curran.

Not to belabor the point, but K2's been educating and killing climbers since they first started trying their luck near the high end of the Baltoro Glacier, deep in the Karakoram Range. Since the first Italian ascent in 1954, an estimated 300 people have climbed to the summit of K2, but scores of them died trying to get down off it.

Many climbers who died a week ago sucessfully summited, only to perish on their way down what is widely considered the world's most difficult and dangerous 8,000-meter mountain.

Powers is one the few climbers to stand on top of K2 - and one of the even smaller number who live to talk about it.

"The Bottleneck is not the crux of the climb, as some have suggested," Powers said today in a phone interview. "The lower slopes are much more difficult and technical."

But anything can happen in the Bottleneck, Powers said, because of its physical features.

"It's an hour-glass couloir, meaning it opens wide at the bottom and it opens again at the top," Powers said. "The narrow, exposed part doesn't seem that long, perhaps a hundred meters," roughly the length of an American football field.

The steep walls of hardened, overhanging ice and snow can be intimidating, Powers said.

"The serac is easily 200 feet above when you're in the Bottleneck," Powers said.

Earlier this week, Powers spoke with the Rocky Mountain News about his K2 experiences and his recollections of the Bottleneck. He also produced a slideshow presentation that PBS Online NewsHour posted today.

Powers' slideshow includes one of his own images of the Bottleneck and its overhanging walls of ice and snow.

"The Bottleneck is the steepest portion of the summit, but actually it's not nearly as difficult as much of the terrain lower down," Powers told the Rocky Mountain News. "Depending on conditions, I liken it to a really steep ski run.

"Directly above it is the Balcony Serac, which is made of ice," Powers said. "If it tabs off or breaks, it's quite threatening to the Bottleneck."

"We weren't using oxygen or high-altitude porters, and we were not roped together, because we felt very comfortable on this terrain," Powers said.

"Coming down, at the Bottleneck, I remember my foot going through quite easily to the rock below -- it kind of threw my balance off," Powers said. "If you actually fall in that situation, you use the technique of self-arrest to stop yourself with your ice ax. I didn't fall, so I didn't have to self-arrest."

Powers said he went on ahead, and he was within eyesight of the Bottleneck at Camp 4, just shy of 8,000 meters. He had made an agreement with his climbing partners that at least one needed to get to high camp before dark so someone could shine a light or use voice recognition for the others if darkness fell.

"Dan Culver was behind me with his friend, Jim Haberl," Powers told the Rocky Mountain News. "I remember looking out and seeing them at the Bottleneck and thinking -- 'Oh, this is good, they're quite close.' So I poked my head back in the tent to melt snow for water.

"Then I heard Jim yell 'help.' Dan was gone.

"Jim used the words, 'He cartwheeled by.' Did he fall because he was hit by a piece of ice from that serac? Did he trip or slip, or fall into unconsciousness because of the altitude? We'll never know."

These painful memories remain instructive teaching tools, and Powers summed them up for PBS Online NewsHour.

"Despite the fact that slopes up there (in the Bottleneck area) are reasonable, things do happen," Powers told NewsHour. "Ice can fall and hit you, high altitude illness can take one over.

"So it remains a dangerous mountain, no matter how experienced or prepared one is."

The 11 who died last week either lost their footing and fell, got swept off the mountain by avalanche, or found themselves cut off from descent when the Balcony serac fall cut fixed lines in the Bottleneck.

Faced with night temperatures of 40-below and colder, scant oxygen and depleting physical reserves, few of those left alive survived.

The Bottleneck couloir on K2 stands at roughly 27,000 feet elevation - above 8,000 meters - in the so-called "death zone."

High-altitude climbers describe the heights they covet in fatalistic terms in part because there is barely enough oxygen to sustain human life. Conditions that can set in rapidly include pulmonary edema and cerebral edema.

The few places on earth that stand above 8,000 meters are exposed to jet-stream, hurricane-force winds, extreme cold, other radical and rapid weather changes, and they are found only on the upper reaches of the world's 14 highest mountains.

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'death zone'

Photo provided by Nicholas Rice

By Guy McCarthy

"The photo of the Bottleneck was taken just after the Serbian fell," Nicholas Rice, 23, of Hermosa Beach, said in an e-mail early Wednesday from K2 base camp.

The so-called Savage Mountain, the world's second-highest and widely considered its most dangerous, stands at 28,251 feet elevation in the Karakoram Range in northern Pakistan.

The Bottleneck photo shows a line of climbers ascending the couloir at 11:06 a.m. Friday Aug. 1, according to electronic data attached to the file. Click on it for detail.

The Bottleneck is at roughly 27,000 feet - above 8,000 meters - and about 1,300 feet below K2's summit. The photo shows part of the setting where 11 climbers died last week high on K2 in one of the deadliest episodes in mountaineering history.

I received the image on Aug. 5, forwarded from Rice by his friend Simon Weaver, 30, of Sherman Oaks.

The Serbian climber Rice referred to in his Aug. 6 e-mail is Dren Mandic, who according to worldwide media reports was the first to die on K2 in the recent tragedies, as he tried to ascend the Bottleneck.

A Pakistani high-altitude porter and experienced Karakoram climber named Jehan Baig tried to recover Mandic's body but he also reportedly fell to his death. Rice later said he helped pack Baig's belongings for transport back to Skardu.

The climbers in the Aug. 1 photo - as many as 10 are visible - continued to the summit, according to multiple acounts. Many of them made it to the top. But few survived.

The Bottleneck is considered a last major obstacle on several routes to K2's highly coveted summit. Only a few hundred have reached the top in more than a century of exploration and attempts. An estimated 27 percent of those who stand on K2's summit get killed on the way down.

The deaths of Mandic and Baig on Aug. 1 were the first in a fatal sequence of events that would leave a total of 11 climbers confirmed dead and frozen high on K2 in the next 24 to 36 hours.

Witnessing that first fatality is part of why Rice is alive today to tell his story.

As reported again today by the Los Angeles Times, Rice's delayed start, after he spilled melted snow on his socks, coupled with freezing hands that he couldn't warm up, convinced him that K2's summit could wait.

Shortly after the Bottleneck photo was taken, Rice abandoned his summit bid and descended to base camp.

---

The Bottleneck couloir on K2 stands at roughly 27,000 feet elevation - above 8,000 meters - in the so-called "death zone."

High-altitude climbers describe the extreme heights in fatalistic terms in part because there is barely enough oxygen to sustain human life. Conditions that can set in rapidly include pulmonary edema and cerebral edema.

The few places on earth that reach above 8,000 meters are also exposed to jet-stream, hurricane-force winds, extreme cold, other radical and rapid weather changes, and they occupy dangerous terrain found only on the summits of the world's 14 highest mountains.

Climbers ascending ridge near Camp III on K2, dated July 4 2008. Photo provided by Nicholas Rice.

Rice's K2 dispatches are here.

base camp

K2 from base camp, image dated June 25 2008. Click for detail.
Photo provided by Nicholas Rice.

By Guy McCarthy

Many climbers who survived one of the deadliest episodes ever on K2 departed base camp swiftly - some by hired helicopter - after 11 of their comrades died high on the so-called Savage Mountain.

But a 23-year-old mountaineer from Hermosa Beach remains five days after the tragedies began, in a desolate tent community that reeks at times of smoldering garbage.

"It smells of burning trash in base camp right now," Nicholas Rice said today by e-mail from below K2.

Rice is now reluctant leader of a drastically depleted expedition, minding his dead companions' gear for porters to carry to Skardu later this week. In a series of e-mail exchanges, Rice shared some details about his current situation.

"I wouldn't say that I am in charge, as there is no one to be in charge of except our cook and kitchen boy," Rice said. "All the members of the expedition are either home or dead."

Rice's expedition leader, Hugues D'Aubarede, is one of the 11 reported killed high on K2 since Friday. There were up to seven other teams on K2 as tragedy began unfolding in an area known as the Bottleneck. Climbers from Nepal, South Korea, Serbia, Norway and Ireland are among those presumed dead.

"I will only now be considered leader of the expedition by the (Pakistan) Ministry of Tourism by default, and will have to go to the debriefing and deal with the other bureaucratic details in Islamabad," Rice said.

Rice is missing his teammates, but he is not entirely alone. He gets along well with Abbas, the cook, and Fazal, the cook's helper. All three lost close friends in the tragedies that began Friday.

"It has been just the three of us for a few days now," Rice said.

Abbas and Fazal are from Hunza in northern Pakistan, the same region that was home to the two high altitude porters who died high on K2 since Friday, Rice said. Though they worked on opposite ends of the mountain, the four Pakistanis were friends, Rice said.

The Pakistani climbers who died have been identified as Mehrban Karim and Jehan Baig.

Aside from his remaining comrades in base camp, Rice has support in the Los Angeles area. His friend Simon Weaver, 30, of Sherman Oaks, is trying to coordinate communications with Rice in Pakistan. Weaver has been trying to get Rice's return flight from Islamabad to LAX pushed back from Aug. 8 to sometime mid-month.

"He seems to be doing okay," Weaver said in a phone conversation. "He's by himself a bit more right now, of course. He's waiting for the porters, maybe there by the eighth (Friday Aug. 8)."

Rice is young compared to many of his colleagues who perished. But he is saddled with the morbid tasks at hand in part because he exercised judgment high on the mountain when others twice his age gambled and paid with their lives.

Meantime, he's patient, waiting for porters to carry his colleagues' gear down the glacier to Skardu. All he wants for, he says, is some decent coffee. Whether he gets it or not, he's becoming accustomed to less and less company.

"Base camp is emptying out at the moment," Rice said. "Only a few are planning on staying. Most are impatiently waiting on porters. Some (climbers) paid $14,000 to get a MI-17 Helicopter to come get them from Base Camp. . . . "

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k2 redux

Camp II photo provided by Nicholas Rice

By Guy McCarthy

In the wake of 11 climber deaths that underscored K2's reputation as the world's most dangerous mountain, 23-year-old Nicholas Rice of Hermosa Beach today described base camp as "a cage that everyone wants to escape."

But Rice's brush with death high on the unforgiving peak - and the loss of so many comrades since Friday - have not deterred him from planning a return to the remote Karakoram Range in northern Pakistan for another attempt on the so-called Savage Mountain.

"I will for sure come back," Rice said in a satellite phone interview today with National Public Radio, summing up a sentiment of generations of climbers who have escaped death where others perished. "There's something about this mountain that draws us all to it."

There were reportedly up to seven other expedition teams on K2 as tragedy began unfolding Friday high on K2. Climbers from Pakistan, Nepal, South Korea, Serbia, Norway and Ireland are among those presumed dead.

In a dispatch posted online earlier today, Rice paid tribute to his expedition leader, Hugues D'Aubarede of France.

After a rainy night on the lower reaches of the mountain, Rice visited the Gilkey Memorial outside base camp, a collection of aging climbing gear and mementos from previous tragedies on K2. Art Gilkey died in a 1953 American expedition in which the team abandoned its attempt to be first ever to summit K2 to try to save Gilkey, stricken by illness at high altitude.

Despite their efforts Gilkey was killed in an avalanche. But the 1953 American team earned worldwide respect for the courage and compassion they demonstrated in trying to save their teammate.

"(I) headed down to Gilkey Memorial to put up the plates we had made to memorialize Hugues, Karim, Gerard and Baig," Rice said in his post. "It was ironic, as the last time I had gone was with a happy healthy Hugues. I am, however, happy that he in the end achieved his goal.

"This was his third year in a row on K2, and finally he had made the summit and lived his dream," Rice said. "It is a shame that triumph and tragedy seem to come hand in hand on K2."

D'Aubarede and Rice had met trekking earlier in the Askole region of Pakistan, French climber and expedition coordinator Raphaele Vernay said in an e-mail Monday from Lyon, France.

"Hugues liked Nick very much," Vernay said. "He was like his son."

Rice said earlier today he was keeping his fingers crossed for two Italians still awaiting rescue higher up the mountain at advance base camp, but the weather wasn't looking good. In the main base camp at the foot of K2, the pain of so many deaths in such a short time cast a pall over those who remained.

"Base camp now seems like a cage that everyone wants to escape," Rice said. "The Koreans are hiring a few helicopters to take them out rather than walking. The Americans, Dutch, Serbian and Norwegians are all waiting for porters to arrive so they can head down. Very few people are considering staying and trying again."

The mountain seemed to mirror the somber mood, Rice said.

"Every evening, we hear cascades of rocks falling down the slopes around us," Rice said. "Huge pieces of ice are crashing down in the icefall, and avalanches roar down the slopes of all the peaks around us daily. . . . rivers flow down where once consolidated snow was . . . It almost seems as though the mountain is weeping for the recently deceased."

In his interview with NPR today, Rice recounted how spilling water on his socks delayed his departure from Camp IV early Friday, a mishap that may have saved his life. The delay, combined with freezing hands and word of poorly-placed fixed ropes on a dangerous section known as the Bottleneck, made him decide to return to base camp without reaching the summit.

Rice also said the weekend's death toll will not discourage him from returning to K2 for another attempt at the summit.

"It's always been a dream of mine to be up there," Rice told NPR via satellite phone. "And it's quite painful to have gotten so close to the summit and . . . turn around.

"Maybe not next year, maybe not the year after that. But I can say in my lifetime I will for sure come back here," Rice said.

"There's something about risking your life . . . for something you love, and testing your body to its maximum that you can't do in a completely safe environment.

"Without risk, we aren't living."

K2's summit stands at 28,251 feet elevation, making it second-highest in the world to Mount Everest. But K2's exposure to jet-stream weather systems, the rapidly changing snow, ice and rock conditions, and its steep upper reaches are considered a more difficult and potentially deadly challenge than Everest.

Only a few hundred have made it to K2's summit since the first successful ascent in 1954 by an Italian expedition. Dozens have died trying over the years, and the death rate for those who do reach the summit is still 27 percent, about three times more than Mount Everest.

As difficult as the ascent is, descent is considered even more dangerous. Many of the 11 reported killed over the weekend had made it to the top of K2 only to perish trying to come down.

Rice's mother said Monday she had promised herself she would never encourage her son to attempt the Savage Mountain.

"We started climbing together when he was very young," Wendy Knowles said in a phone interview. "We went up Shasta when he was 16, and he took off from there. Then he did Denali" - Mount McKinley in Alaska - "and that was his ticket to the Himalayas.

"I used to tell him I'd never help him climb that mountain," she said of K2. "But I supported him in going to Broad Peak. That's how he got me. . . . I'm just very grateful he's okay."

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Rice also spoke to KNX1070 NewsRadio of Los Angeles today. Interview here.

For description of the Bottleneck from someone who made it to the top of K2 and survived the descent, listen to this NPR interview with Karakoram veteran Ed Viesturs. He summited without oxygen in 1992.

karakoram story

By Guy McCarthy

Hermosa Beach native Nicholas Rice has survived one of the deadliest episodes ever on what many climbers consider the world's most dangerous mountain.

Eleven climbers are reported dead on K2 today, many killed over the weekend by avalanche or cut off from descent when ice cut fixed ropes high on the mountain. Others reportedly died trying to save the injured.

Today Rice is one of the few remaining in a lonely base camp in the remote Karakoram Range of northeast Pakistan, and he is gathering the belongings of his dead companions.

"I can tell it's wearing on him to have to pack up things of people who have died," said Rice's mother, Wendy Knowles, who has been in touch with her 23-year-old son via satellite phone.

"He's doing what has to be done," Knowles said in a phone interview after talking with Nick this morning. "But I can tell from his voice that it's pretty grim."

According to his online dispatches, Rice was high on the mountain over the weekend, when a combination of falls, avalanche and exposure killed members of his French-led expedition. His team leader, Hugues D'Aubarede, 61, is among the reported fatalities.

There were reportedly up to seven other expedition teams on K2 at the same time as the tragedy unfolded. Climbers from Pakistan, Nepal, South Korea, Serbia, Norway and Ireland are among those presumed dead.

Rice made it to Camp IV above 25,000 feet without supplemental oxygen, but he turned back and descended to base camp after one climber fell to his death and ice cut fixed lines on a steep section below the summit known as "the Bottleneck."

D'Aubarede and Rice met trekking earlier in Askole region of Pakistan, French climber and expedition coordinator Raphaele Vernay said in an e-mail early today from Lyon, France.

"Hugues liked Nick very much," Vernay said. "He was like his son."

Rice has been posting online updates of his team's progress and the tragedies. He has remained focused in his postings, but he also reveals the toll of a deadly weekend are weighing on him.

"(A)fter my first decent night's sleep in a week, I woke up and went down to have breakfast with the last team member remaining in my base camp, Peter," Rice said Sunday in a dispatch posted today.

"He is however, heading down today, and I will have to complete my stay in base camp alone, faced with the grim task of packing my climbing partners' and friends' belongings and informing their embassies and families of their grim fate," Rice said.

A climber he calls Wilco was still being helped down the mountain with severely frostbitten feet after five nights above 8,000 meters - 26,250 feet - a region known among high-altitude climbers as the "death zone" for its lack of oxygen and exposure to the elements.

Two others were also still descending - Cas, who made a miraculous downclimb of the Bottleneck where the fixed ropes were cut, and Marco, found unconscious with gloves off and harness half off.

"Base camp is quite somber thanks to the enormous loss of life in such a short amount of time," Rice said. "Today (Sunday) is the final day that I can rationally hold on to the thread of hope that Hugues is somehow still alive."

A final dispatch Rice posted today is titled "Summit Push - The Final Cost."

"After a quiet breakfast alone in base camp, Sultan helped me sort through Karim and Baig's belongings and pack them for the journey back to Skardu," Rice said.

"I headed up as Wilco was taken up in a (gurney) to the makeshift helipad that the Americans had constructed," Rice said. "We all watched as Eric was loaded in the helicopter so he could swing up close to Camp II on the Abruzzi route to check the progress of Marco on his descent.

"After that was finished, we waited as Wilco was loaded into the helicopter to be evacuated, and then again when Cas was loaded into the second helicopter to be taken down."

Rice composed a list of the dead and, apparently accepting the death of his team leader, he listed D'Aubarede among the confirmed fatalities.

K2's summit stands at 28,251 feet elevation, making it second-highest in the world to Mount Everest. But K2's exposure to jet-stream weather systems, the rapidly changing snow, ice and rock conditions, and its steep upper reaches are considered a much more difficult and potentially deadly challenge than Everest.

Only a few hundred have made it to K2's summit since the first successful ascent in 1954 by an Italian expedition. Dozens have died trying over the years, and the death rate for those who do reach the summit is still 27 percent, about three times more than Mount Everest.

As difficult as the ascent is, descent is considered even more dangerous. Many of the 11 reported killed over the weekend had made it to the top of K2 only to perish trying to come down.

Rice's mother recalled today that she had promised herself she would never encourage her son to attempt the Savage Mountain.

"We started climbing together when he was very young," Knowles said. "We went up Shasta when he was 16, and he took off from there. Then he did Denali" - Mount McKinley in Alaska - "and that was his ticket to the Himalayas.

"I used to tell him I'd never help him climb that mountain," she said of K2. "But I supported him in going to Broad Peak. That's how he got me. . . . I'm just very grateful he's okay."

As news of the high-altitude drama broke worldwide over the weekend, Rice continued maintaining satellite phone contact with his mother. He also continued filing dispatches about his progress.

Rice's dispatch dated Saturday is headlined, "Summit Push - Climbers Stranded on Summit."

His previous dispatch dated Friday is titled, "Summit Day - Tragedy Begins."

According to his reports, Rice made it above 25,000 feet on K2, to Camp IV. He decided against a summit attempt because of deteriorating conditions and his assessment of his strength and stamina at the time.

"I realized, since I was feeling quite strong, that I could summit K2 without oxygen, Rice wrote. "(H)owever if I wanted to keep my fingers and enjoy a normal adult life, I needed to turn around and not let my ambitions get the best of me."

The death of a climber who fell that day on a part of the mountain known as the "Bottleneck" convinced Rice to head down rather make a summit attempt, he wrote.

"I made the decision to head down, as I wasn't willing to climb on a
route that wasn't properly fixed (protected by reliable fixed ropes) and was by nature dangerous . . . and had already killed someone," Rice said.

"I watched as the line of climbers stopped and some went back to help," Rice said. "(I) was somewhat shocked when I saw the line of climbers continue up the route towards the summit."

During his descent Saturday, Rice stopped in Camp II to melt snow for water, rest and to make a satellite phone check. He received a disturbing message about the ordeals that continued above him on the mountain.

"(A) big chunk of ice had fallen off the serac above the bottleneck, and cut the fixed lines, stranding the climbers above the bottleneck," Rice said in the last dispatch available today on his web site.

"The mountain seems to have become quite dangerous from top to bottom and I couldn't wait to get off of it," Rice said. "Jelle and I arrived at the bottom of the route around 6 p.m. Joselito was at the base to meet us, and told us of the tragedy . . . He set the death toll at nine."

Rice said he held out hope for his expedition leader, D'Aubarede, even though there was no news of him.

Just before sunset Saturday, an injured climber was spotted near Camp III, and another climber in Camp IV was sent down to check. There was little else the people in base camp could do at that time, other than try to keep track of communications.

"We all went to bed not knowing the fate of the climber," Rice said. "Also, I said goodbye to Peter tonight, who was heading down tomorrow to Skardu. This was his fifth attempt on K2 and he was no stranger to the loss of teammates on this deadly mountain."

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NOTE: 2007 K2 photo at top by Christian. NASA image of Karakoram Range, right, taken by unidentified shuttle astronaut with handheld camera September 2000.

More from NASA's description of the image:

The Tarim sedimentary basin borders the range on the north and the Lesser Himalayas on the south. Melt waters from vast glaciers, such as those south and east of K2, feed agriculture in the valleys (dark green) and contribute significantly to the regional fresh-water supply. The Karakoram Range lies along the southern edge of the Eurasian tectonic plate and is made up of ancient sedimentary rocks - more than 390 million years old, according to geologists studying the shuttle imagery. Those strata were folded and thrust-faulted, and granite masses were intruded, say the geologists, when the Indo-Pakistan plate collided with Eurasia, beginning more than 100 million years ago.

sick forest

By Guy McCarthy

As reported here previously, there are a lot of dead and dying trees in the San Bernardino National Forest.

The ridge pictured is between Big Bear Lake and Running Springs, above Highway 18 west of Snow Valley ski resort.

Cutting down all this dead and dying fuel is cost-prohibitive, according to the U.S. Forest Service. Otherwise they'd have done it years ago.

In the meantime, from the east San Gabriels to the San Jacintos, extreme fire hazards remain in the nation's most urbanized mountain forest.

For a report from Running Springs during the Slide Fire early Oct. 23 2007, click here.

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parker center

By Guy McCarthy

As millions of people can testify, the 5.4-magnitude temblor at 11:42 a.m. July 29 2008 made the earth tremble from Tijuana to Las Vegas.

It also shook this eight-story building in downtown Los Angeles, which is headquarters for the largest law enforcement agency west of the Mississippi.

No damage was reported this time. But Parker Center was yellow-tagged after the 1994 Northridge quake, meaning the building had been damaged and it might be unsafe to occupy, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Parker Center, constructed in the 1950s and opened in 1955, was built to primitive earthquake standards, according to the Times.

That is one reason a new LAPD headquarters is under construction on Spring Street, across from the Times building and City Hall.

Sometimes I work in the press room on the ground floor at Parker Center, but that section is just one story and a basement area.

I worked night shifts this past week, so I was not there at 11:42 a.m. Tuesday. For a brief report on what it was like where I was sleeping when the temblor hit, see the previous post, terremoto.

Click here for another photo of Parker Center taken Thursday morning.

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