Anchorage Daily News

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Blinded by the glare off the snow and ice, attempting a perilous descent down K2 to save his life, the Dutch mountaineer came upon three Korean climbers.

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Ger McDonnell, 37, is one of at least 11 persons presumed dead during a two-day span on 28,250-foot K2. One report said he was seen falling from the slope.

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One sat dazed in the snow. Another held a rope. The third was suspended at the other end, hanging upside down.

"They were trying to survive," the Dutch mountaineer, Wilco van Rooijen, recalled Monday, "but I had also to survive because I was getting snow blind." He said he offered help but they declined, believing help was already on the way.

Speaking by phone with The Associated Press from a military hospital where he was being treated for frostbitten toes, van Rooijen provided a gripping account of his ordeal on K2 before he and another Dutch climber were plucked to safety Monday.

Among van Rooijen's climbing partners was Ger McDonnell, an Irish citizen who called Alaska home for the last decade.

McDonnell, 37, is one of at least 11 people presumed dead during a disasterous two-day span on 28,250-foot K2, the world's second-highest mountain.

McDonnell, van Rooijen and other members of the Dutch expedition team called NoritK2 reached the summit on Friday, a day when about 20 climbers summited a peak that only about 300 people have ever scaled. McDonnell's effort made him the first Irishman to stand atop K2.

News of the accomplishment was posted on the team's Web site, along with a now-prophetic warning: "We said it before and repeat it again. Now the most difficult part will start."

Below the summit is a steep gully called the Bottleneck, a so-called death zone, the site of many K2 disasters where climbers rely on fixed ropes.

Some climbers had reached the Bottleneck when a big chunk of ice fell from above, taking out ropes and at least three climbers -- and stranding several others either in or above the gully. McDonnell was among those stranded.

Van Rooijen said he spent the night huddled in the snow with McDonnell and Marco Confortola.

The next morning, clouds descended, making it almost impossible for the climbers to locate each other or see their way. Van Rooijen left McDonnell and Confortola and managed to pick his way through the gully.

He said others suffered fatal falls making a similar attempt. Others are believed to have died from freezing temperatures and lack of oxygen while stranded above the Bottleneck.

It's not certain whether McDonnell died in a fall or from exposure, although one report said he was seen falling from the slope.

On Monday, Confortola was in satellite phone contact and climbing down on foot, despite frostbite. He made part of the trip alone before being joined by a rescue team. "I am surely not going to give up now," he told a colleague.

Besides McDonnell, those believed dead include three South Koreans, two Nepalis, two Pakistanis and mountaineers from France, Serbia and Norway. It was not clear whether the three Koreans were the same van Rooijen encountered.

McDonnell was well-known among members of Alaska's climbing community and Anchorage's Irish community.

While he was waiting for the weather to cooperate on K2, his girlfriend Annie Starkey summited Mount McKinley; the day after he summited K2 and was reported missing, his band, Last Night's Fun, played at the annual Galway Days celebration in downtown Anchorage.

An adventurer who came to Alaska to further his mountaineering skills, McDonnell worked on the North Slope as a computer programmer/analyst for Glacier Services Inc.

Tim Kelley, one of the company's owners, said McDonnell once rode his motorcycle to work -- from Anchorage to Prudhoe Bay.

Some of McDonnell's friends planned to gather Monday night, but no memorial has yet been planned. John Walsh, who played with McDonnell in Last Night's Fun, said McDonnell's family in Ireland have planned an Aug. 17 memorial, and nothing will happen in Anchorage before that.

McDonnell's body isn't expected to be recovered from K2. Such a high-altitude effort is considered too risky.

A report in the Irish Times said Starkey and one of McDonnell's brothers are traveling to Pakistan to meet with van Rooijen.

Daily News reporter Beth Bragg in Anchorage and Associated Press writers Zarar Khan and Sadaqat Jan in Islamabad, Kwang-Tae Kim in Seoul, Marta Falconi in Rome, Jill Lawless in London and Angela Doland in Paris contributed to this report.

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