K-2, the second eight thousanders after the Mt. Everest is known as the Savage Mountain as it is deadlier in climbing than the Everest. Although many have attempted to scale this 28,251 feet high conical or pyramid shaped mountain, none has attempted skiing on it.
And when Fredrik Ericsson of Sweden tried skiing his way down from the K2, he was taking too many chances last year in August. Fredrik who was born in Umea, Sweden had grown up skiing all of his life and was considered as one of the best. He became the first ever Swede to descend from a 8,000 meters peak in2004 at Shisha Pangma in Tibet.
Later in 2007, he moved up to the Baltoro valley in Pakistan and descended from the 8,035 metre high Gasherum 2, which was his second 8000 meters peak. He attempted his third descent from the 8,167 metres Dhaulgiri but due to unfavourable weather conditions, Frederick chose to make a 3,000 vertical descent, instead. In 2008, he returned to the Himalayas for a descent from 8,568 metres high Kanchenjunga but had to abort his attempt due to bad weather.
But he always aimed for a descent from the K-2, the Savage Mountain was calling him for another world. And when on 6th of August 2010, he finally came to do it, it wasn’t his day in this life. He lost hold of the surface at a height of 1000 metres and became unstable when he was fixing the rope to the rock just below the peak at around 7 a.m. His fall was his last descent and lost his life on the spot when he fell. His passion for K-2 was just deathly and robbed us of a great skier and a mountaineer.
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