CHICAGO, UNITED STATES (Team Geared Up) - This photo came down the wire from watershed news.

“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 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.

Amazing to see the detail. You can see the face they (presumably) went out on and fell from on the left.

-Robin.

CHICAGO, UNITED STATES (Team Geared Up) - Irish Climber Gerard McDonnell is missing on K2. K2 is regarded as one of the most all-round difficult mountains in the world with only around 189 climbers having reached the summit, 49 climbers have died on K2, 22 while descending it. The 37-year-old from Kilcornan, Co Limerick had become the first Irish person to reach the summit yesterday before going missing after an ice fall on the descent.

Eoin reported in June that Irish climber Gerard McDonnell was going back to K2 this year as part of a Dutch expedition climbers to climb the formidable mountain. The group of 6, including Gerard, has now been cut off above 8,000 metres on the mountain which is on the China - Pakistan border.

via Explorersweb…

On descent, a big chunk of ice fell from the serac below the summit, taking a large part of the fixed lines with it. About 12 people, including Wilco, Gerard, Marco and Korean climbers got stuck either above the traverse or above the Bottleneck.

[..]All involved, such as Roeland in BC and the Dutch K2 Norit expedition webmaster Maarten van Eck have been awake for at least 48 hours non-stop by now.

The latest news of each team member and the search efforts can be read here.

They state:

IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR FRIENDS AND RELATIVES FROM GERARD. We still do not know were Gerard is.

Latest positions:

• ROELAND in K2BC
• CAS and PEMBA (rescueteam, now from Camp 4 to Camp 3)
• WILCO Still searching for him.
• MARCO Found and brought to Camp 4. He is in C4 with oxygen and medicines. He goes down with the High Altitude Porters tomorrow.
• MARK safe in Camp 2.
• JELLE is safe in Base Camp.
• GERARD unknown.
• HUGUES unknown.

and then…

K2 BaseCamp (Roeland) can see a person in Orange suit between C4 and C3 at the Cessen route. That person is slowly moving down. Cas and Pemba will descend from C4 towards C3 and try to locate the lonely climber. More news to follow as soon as we hear something.

Location of Gerard and Hugues is unknown. K2 BC can see 5 people climbing down the Bottleneck and 2 above.

Let’s hope those 2 are Gerard & Hugues.

Very sad end to an exciting day of summit yesterday. Let’s hope this works out well.

Update: Pat Falvey has been interviewed by RTE, Gerard was a team leader in Pat Falvey’s Beyond Endurance expedition. Pat is hopeful that it will turn out well.

DUBLIN, IRELAND (Geared Up Blog) - Gerard McDonnell is going back to K2 this year as part of a Dutch expedition to climb the formidable mountain. I’m not sure is he part of their team or just with the expedition so that he can attain his climbing permit. The expedition website is here though just beware it is mostly in Dutch so i can’t really understand a whole lot of what is going on.

-Eoinod-