Posted on 05/08/2018 8:55:36 PM PDT by MtnClimber
I met Kurt Diemberger maybe 20 years ago at a slide show in Boulder, Colorado. I had already ready read the book about the tragedy of his climb on K2. This is the song his partner, Julie Tullis liked and which Kurt named the book after. Details of the climb, song at link.
A British woman who began serious mountain climbing after age 40 tells her life story, with special emphasis on how she made a new career as an award-winning mountain cinematographer in what were to be the last five years of her life. She died in 1986, descending from the summit of K-2. While her Himalayan expeditions occupy the last half of the book and are told with the unique viewpoint of a woman photographer, the early pages are also unusual. Julie and her husband Terry Tullis operated a rock-climbing school near Tunbridge Wells that offered programs to handicapped and disturbed children and adults. Her experiences suggest how much is lacking in American programs for blind and emotionally disturbed youths. Her chapter 'Why' gives reasons for choosing adventurous paths that other women will find valid. Julie Tullis was one of the world's most accomplished female Himalayan climbers. She died high on K2 in 1986 along with several other strong climbers during descent from the summit, pinned down at highest camp by fierce weather. This is her autobiography, published posthumously. It includes a chapter written by Peter Gillman on the 1986 K2 tragedy.
This was the fateful season on K2 where Al Rouse, Maurice & Liliane Barrard, Renato Casarotto, Tadeusz Piotrowski, and other good climbers perished on the mountain. This book describes many of Tullis' climbs and her film-making partnership with Kurt Diemberger, Tullis' very close friend. Climbs discussed include Peru Cordillera Blanca Huascaran, Nanga Parbat, Mount Everest, K2 and Karakoram, Broad Peak, Yosemite, etc. In addition to being autobiographical, this book presents many details about the personality and methods and abilities of the famous mountaineer, Kurt Diemberger. Kurt Diemberger (born 1932 in Austria), is the only remaining person alive that has made the first ascents on two mountains over 8,000 metres. In 1957, he made the first ascent of Broad Peak and in 1960, the first ascent of Dhaulagiri. Diemberger was also the last person to see Hermann Buhl alive before he fell through a cornice on Chogolisa. Diemberger was one of only two survivors in the 1986 K2 Disaster. On August 4, 1986, Diemberger and Julie Tullis reached the summit of K2 very late in the day. Shortly after starting their descent, Julie fell -- dragging Diemberger with her. Fortunately, they somehow stopped from going over the edge and spent the night above 8,000 metres. They managed to reach Camp IV the next day, where they were forced to share a tent with six other climbers after their tent had collapsed from hurricane force winds. Unfortunately, Julie died later that night, possibly from HACE, and only one other of climbers survived the descent with Diemberger. Diemberger is still active in the mountaineering world and works on film projects with his daughter.
I have been climbing in conditions like that and consider myself fortunate to have experienced it and to have lived through it. The song is great too.
&s there an equivalent to “Excelsior” for decents?
Awesome! I met Kurt Diemberger at a slideshow he gave just a couple of years after the K2 disaster. He ended with an eloquent memorial to his climbing friends who perished, saying he and they were all doing what they loved.
Thanks for this thread, and the song!
I used to do climbs in the USA (Tetons etc.) but never sought to go to greater heights. I love the mountains but getting into thinner and thinner air just had no appeal to me, with or without oxygen supplements.
Joni Mitchell is a musical genius. I know that word is overused today, but she deserves it. I include her lyrics and prose along with the music. They are welded together as finished pieces of melody and melodrama. I was just listening to her album Hejira from about 1977. So many good songs to hear on it. “Coyote, Amelia, Furry Sings the Blues, Hejira and A Song For Sharon.
Joni cannot sing in public anymore, having been stopped after a brain aneurysm in 2015. She uses a wheelchair too.
Even the Queen of folk rock, with her unusual acoustic chords, her pure harmonies with just the right touch of discordance is but a fragile human, like the rest of us.
Fated and spiritually fey.
I could see the curvature of the Earth from the summit!
There is that temperature thing, as well.
Wife and I chose to retire to warm climes. Even the fog of SoCal was eating at us after a while.
I think you must mean 14,000 feet??? 14,000 meters is 46,000 feet.
If you can listen to CIRCLE GAME & not cry, you are stronger than me.
bttt
“Court and Spark” will always be one of my favorite albums.
I wonder if her body is still there.
Imagine having to share a tiny tent with 5 other people in order to survive, and one of them up and dies next to you in the night.
Indeed, Keith Emerson committed suicide because he could no longer play the keyboards.
Maybe it just felt like 46,000 feet!
The highest I've climbed is 14,495 feet, Whitney. Did that one twice.
There is another mountain just to the north called Mt. Tyndall. While not as high as Whitney the trek is a lot longer and more difficult, so it gets a lot less traffic. Right next to it is another 14er, (Mt. Williamson) which is very convenient.
I tried to climb both on a solo attempt. Those were the mountains that broke me. Sudden hail, clogged water filter, nonstop bloody nose, and came very close to getting a direct lightning hit.
I finally had to go back home, defeated.
Never again did I attempt something on that scale, but I am glad I did that stuff when my body was hale and healthy.
cherish those memories.
Mt. Evans, Pikes Peak and Mt. Washington have roads almost all the way to the top.
Why hike when you can drive?
Persons who risk the lives of their rescuers and sherpas for their own self glorification are better dead.
Yeah, and Pike’s Peak has a cog railroad that goes to the top!
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