Elite Alpinists Feared Dead on K2
News of both tragedy and triumph has come from K2 in recent days. On July 28, Benjamin Védrines smashed the peak’s speed record, climbing the standard route from Advanced Base Camp (17,398ft) to the summit (28,251ft) in a mere 11 hours, without the aid of supplementary oxygen. The previous record, set by Benoit Chamoux in 1986, was 23 hours.
At the same time, Japanese duo Kazuya Hiraide and Kenro Nakajima are presumed dead, after what appears to have been a long fall on the West Face. The 8,500-foot wall has only been climbed once before, by a large Russian team in 2007. Eleven climbers sieged the wall with fixed ropes and seven camps over a period of 10 weeks.
Hiraide, 45, and Nakajima, 39, were attempting to carve their own line up the face in alpine style, without supplemental oxygen. They reportedly fell from around 24,000 feet during a reconnaissance mission from Camp II, around 11:30 a.m. on July 27.
A Pakistani military helicopter spotted their prone figures on July 28, but was unable to land and confirm their condition. The following day they were spotted again from the air again, still motionless, presumed to be dead. As of July 30, their sponsor, Ishii Sports, announced that ground search had been called off, due to the treacherous nature of the terrain in which Hiraide and Nakajima’s bodies lay.
Hiraide and Nakajima are two of Japan’s top alpinists, and Hiraide, in particular, is considered one of the finest in history. Their exploits together have twice earned them a Piolet d’Or, for new routes on the Northeast Face of Shispare (24,970ft) in 2017 and the South Face of Rakaposhi (25,551ft) in 2019. Hiraide also won the award in 2009, for an ascent of the unclimbed Southeast Face of Kamet (25,446ft) with the late Kei Taniguchi. The pair were the first Japanese climbers to win the coveted award, and Taniguchi the first woman in history.
Among a host of other daunting objectives, Hiraide and Nakajima made the first ascent of Karun Koh (22,890ft) via the Northwest Face in 2022, and the first ascent of Tirich Mir (25,289ft)’s North Face last year in alpine style. The latter climb was documented in the short film ROPE. “For us it’s important to climb where people haven’t, so that there can be a path,” Hiraide said in the film. Both men, who have climbed together almost exclusively since 2016, made clear their respect and appreciation for each other.“It is rare to find someone that you feel completely secure tying a rope with,” Nakajima said, noting that he saw Hiraide not just as a partner, but as a mentor, and sometimes couldn’t believe he was lucky enough to climb with him.
While the duo seemed to operate with the older, slightly more experienced Hiraide in charge, in the film he also revealed a growing feeling of fear and apprehension while climbing, something he said Nakajima helped him overcome. “I have climbed many mountains, and now I have become afraid of them … When I head for a mountain, fear makes me hesitate, it’s hard for me to take the step, but Kenro does it without a second’s hesitation. I have lost that innocence. His courage is the reason I am able to climb these mountains.”
Graham Zimmerman, who attempted the West Ridge of K2 with Ian Welsted in 2021 but was stymied due to high temperatures, told Climbing that he was in awe of the Hiraide and Nakajima’s plans. “The West Face in alpine style is an incredible and futuristic objective, the scale and steepness are truly astounding,” he said. “I’m very sad to hear they have been lost.” Welsted echoed the sentiment, and noted that, at least during the high temperatures he and Zimmerman encountered in 2021, the West Face appeared a foreboding objective. “The probability of large rockfall and avalanches seemed very high.”
Zimmerman said that it’s important to note the face’s extreme isolation compared to the “crowded fixed-rope chaos of the Abruzzi Spur” (the peak’s standard route, used by 75% of climbers and all commercial parties). “Those guys were out there, alone, very far away from the crowds on the other side of a very, very big mountain,” he said. “They might as well have been on a different planet. The climbing and the experience are totally incomparable to the climbing on the trade routes. The type of climbing they were doing and the location required immense experience and fitness.”
“The time we spent on the West Ridge was some of my most special time in the mountains,” Zimmerman added. “It was immense, we felt very alone and moving fast on that ground was incredible. I hoped those guys would experience the same, and take it to the summit. It breaks my heart that it didn’t happen that way.”
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