Tragedy has struck late into the perilous K2 climbing season, after a Chinese climber was hit by falling rocks and killed while descending the world's second-tallest mountain.
China's Jing Guan was descending the mountain on Tuesday, August 12, when loose rock tumbled down the Abruzzi Spur route and struck and killed the climber. Guan was one of 40 climbers from an Imagine Nepal expedition to summit the mountain in challenging conditions on Monday, along with three other climbing teams.
Multiple other expeditions were abandoned before reaching the summit due to the perilous conditions and high likelihood of rockfalls.
K2, which rises 28,251 ft (8,611m) from the Karokoram mountain range, is second only to Mount Everest in height, and has endured an unexpectedly dry winter. Dry conditions on the mountain have been extremely dangerous for climbers, prompting loose underfoot terrain and multiple rockfall incidents.
Nicknamed the 'Savage Mountain', K2 has a terrifying reputation for climbing deaths. In 2021, mortality rates on the mountain were as high as 25%, but that number dropped drastically to just 13% in 2024.
K2 isn't the only mountain to contend with rockfall in recent weeks. Earlier this month, it caused the summit of Cima Falkner in the Italian Alps to open "like a flower," and send rocks tumbling down the mountain, while in the Dolomites, a British hiker was fined more than $16,000 after calling for rescue from a trail closed by rockfall.
As the planet warms, mountains around the globe are more likely to experience permafrost degradation, when usually frozen ground thaws, loosening rocks on the mountain, according to the Scientific Committee of the Italian Alpine Club which told La Repubblica: "Landslides are on the rise, and the main cause is the climate crisis. There’s no doubt about it.
"Mountains, by definition, are destined to collapse, they won’t remain as we know them forever. What’s different now is that we’re seeing a clear acceleration of these processes, driven by heat and extreme weather events intensified by the climate crisis," it continued.
It's difficult to link single events to climate change, but increased rockfall on K2 appears to be a part of a larger pattern of dry summers and loose rock on the world's tallest mountains.
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