Climber Leaves Group to Go Solo on 'Killer Mountain'

For the past eight weeks, a team of Polish alpinists has battled some of the most powerful forces in nature to try to make history. They are attempting a winter ascent of the K2, the crown jewel of the Karakoram Range. But then over the weekend, their strongest climber, Denis Urubko, abruptly announced that he wanted to go for the summit two weeks earlier than team leader Krzysztof Wielicki had planned. After an angry argument, he packed his bags and set off alone up the mountain. He did not take a radio with him, so the group has no way of contacting him and no way of knowing where he was or if he was okay.

“What Denis has done is very selfish,” said Wielicki, a 68-year-old Polish alpinist, to National Geographic. “Denis thinks it’s all about just him, but it’s not. He has put all of us in danger. If something goes wrong, of course we must try to rescue him.” Wielicki believes winter is the true test for high-altitude climbers, and K2, which is stepper and deadlier than Mount Everest, is the biggest achievement. He personally has been working toward it for a decade. He established winter climbing in the Himalayas forty years ago. “We must now focus the whole team on helping Denis,” Wielicki said. “No matter what happens on the summit we want him to get back down alive.”