Climber’s Mummified Remains Discovered on K2 Identified
The mountains can be both majestic and merciless, often claiming the lives of adventurers and only relinquishing their remains much later. Identifying these lost souls can be a discouraging and complex task.
Just a week ago a photographer named Riccardo Selvatico participating in an Italian-Pakistani trip organized by the Italian Alpine Club to celebrate the 70th anniversary of K2’s first ascent and made a haunting discovery. During a glacier walk, he slipped upon the dried remains of a climber.
At first, the team believed the body might belong to a Spanish climber from the Basque Country, as the jacket bore a logo reading “Bask.” This immediately brought to mind Atxo Apellaniz, a Basque climber who tragically died on K2 in 1994. However, Apellaniz had perished on the north side of the mountain, in Chinese territory, ruling out this initial assumption.
Further complicating the identification process, the team recalled the deaths of three Spanish climbers in 1995 — Javier Escartin, Javier Olivar, and Lorenzo Ortiz — who lost their lives in an avalanche on the South Side of K2. Yet, these climbers hailed from Aragon, not the Basque Country. Additionally the Basque translates to Vasco in Spanish and Euskera or Euskaldun in the Basque language adding to the confusion.
The mountains keep their secrets well and it takes loving effort and a touch of luck to undo the mysteries they hold.
A Well-Known Clothing Brand
It turns out that Bask is a Russian brand of mountain clothing that sponsored various expeditions in the 2000s and 2010s. When the Russian climbing community saw the photos, they quickly proposed a more likely theory.
“Most likely, he is one of the four Siberian climbers who died in 2005,” wrote Elena Laletina of Russianclimb. Alexander Foight, Yuri Uteshev, Piotr Kuznetsov, and Arkady Kuvakin wore such jackets. They were slipped away by an slide at the Bottleneck.
To identify the body, Yuri Kruglov, a Russian climber currently on K2, took a sample for DNA testing. Meanwhile, the long-deceased avalanche victim was laid to rest beside the Gilkey Memorial on the glacier.