Rice, 23, was attempting to climb K2, the world’s second-highest mountain, widely considered one of the world’s most difficult summit (and one of the most deadly).

The Bottleneck, as the name implies, was an exposed section of the climbing route where climbers were dependent on fixed ropes set by other climbers and Sherpas for passage up and down. In this way, the Bottleneck is similar to Mount Everest’s Hillary Step. Unlike the Hilary Step, however, the Bottleneck lay beneath a system of ice seracs—towering and unstable blocks of ice.

That morning at camp, Nick had spilled water on his socks, getting them wet. Consequently he got a late start that day. After about an hour of climbing, Nick (who was climbing without oxygen) still wasn’t warming up. He decided the prudent course of action was to turn back, and he did so, returning to Camp IV. After resting at camp for several hours, Nick decided to continue descending. Other climbers continued upward.

Soon after that, Nick learned that the ice blocks overhanging the Bottleneck had broken loose in an avalanche, killing three climbers and stranding others above by destroying the fixed ropes.

Like the events described in John Krakauer’s book Into Thin Air, the K2 avalanche has a ghoulish quality that lingers in the imagination. Discovering that the ropes—their lifeline—had been cut, the trapped climbers’ options were extremely limited. I expect we’ll see a great deal of coverage on this tragedy as more details emerge.

Nick has posted regular dispatches of his climb, including the avalanche and rescue efforts, on his website.

This looks like a really unlucky year to be paying the usual fortune for an Everest bid. Civil war in Nepal has threatened to close off south-side access, and the Chinese government has apparently closed the entire north side of the mountain as part of an Olympics promotion stunt (they want to carry the torch to the summit). Just to add to the mix, China is reportedly pressuring Nepal to close the south side of the mountain as well. I guess they need the whole mountain to themselves for the torch ceremony?

Sounds like it will be an interested time on the world’s highest peak—but then again, it always is.

High Crimes documents the shocking but very real emergence of theft as yet another deadly threat climbers must face on 8000 meter peaks. You’ve probably heard about the ‘borrowing’ of oxygen bottles on Everest and similar tales, but the depth of the crime on Everest and other big peaks (including K2!) is truly astonishing.

Kodas notes numerous incidents in which climbers left high camps (ie, the last camp before summit) for marathon summit pushes only to return and find their tents ransacked, with critical supplies, such as fuel, clothing, and even sleeping bags gone. Obviously, such theft is life-threatening for exhausted, exposed climbers at extreme altitude with the sun going down.

The author makes the point that in many of these cases, it would be patently evident to the thieves that their actions could directly lead to the deaths of other climbers. If you watch someone take off for the summit, and then raid his tent, what you are doing is tantamount to murder.

If that sounds like an overstatement, consider the situation Don Bowie found himself in while trying for a solo summit of the Karakorum’s Broad Peak (more…)

Hi-Definition footage is really changing how I think of television. Previous to the technology, you’d need a virtual army to take a 35mm Panavision camera on a trip like this. Now, with tiny HD cameras, even a small expedition can return with theater-quality video that gives the viewer a vastly more real experience.

That makes it possible for us to see video like this: a fast-and-light team trying for a new route up one of the world’s most dangerous and deadly peaks.

National Geographic has put together a Photo tribute to the life of Sir Edmund Hillary.

Hillary’s accomplishment brought worldwide fame and recognition of the sort rarely experienced by mountaineers. Like all of History’s greatest adventurers, Hillary and Norgay expanded the limits of the possible on that day in the Himalayas. After Everest, Hillary remained active as a climber, though he did not summit the world’s highest peak again. He also established the Himalayan Trust, dedicated to helping the Sherpa of Nepal.

Hillary died on January 11, 2008, in Auckland. He was 88.

And then this: following a successful summit bid, climber Lincoln Hall collapsed around 8800 meters, struck by cerebral edema, one of the deadliest of the many high-altitude disorders.

Sherpas tried for nine hours to get him off the upper mountain, but eventually gave up for their own safety. Hall was left on the mountain, and word was sent to his family and to his native Australia that he had perished.

Seven a.m. the next morning: climbers on the way to Everest’s summit found Hall alive. His first words were reportedly, “I imagine you are surprised to see me here.”

Miraculously, Hall had survived a night alone on Everest. With the aid of fresh sherpas, he was assisted down the mountain to base camp, where, aside from frostbite, he quickly recovered.

It is strange, isn’t it, to read these stories? Every year, Everest’s call lures climbers to the deaths, and still they come.

If the opportunity came for you to go to Everest, would you be able to resist? Would you go, but tell yourself (as writer John Krakauer did) you’re only going to climb a little way above base camp? Or would you take your best shot, come what may?