News Desk
Social media activists have criticised climbers including a top climber defends walking past dying high altitude porter. Kristin Harila says nothing could have been done about the porter after footage showed people climbing over him.
A top mountaineer has been forced to defend herself after accusations that her team climbed over a dying Sherpa as they headed to the summit of the K2 mountain to secure a new world record.
Images of climbers clambering past the injured Pakistani on a treacherous ridge on the same day that Norway’s Kristin Harila ascended have been condemned by fellow mountaineers.
They claimed a Western climber would not have been left to die and said the scenes would be unthinkable in the Alps, igniting a row about how local Sherpas are used in the Himalayas.
Harila, 37, climbed Pakistan’s K2 on July 27, securing her 14th highest peak in just over three months to become the world’s fastest climber to scale all peaks above 8,000 metres.
During her ascent, porter Mohammed Hassan fell off a sheer edge at the top of the area known as the bottleneck, some 8,200 metres high.
Ms Harila said her team did everything they could to save Mr Hassan, but conditions were too dangerous to move him.