Alpine Club Honours Climbers

The Alpine Club is making its first Spirit of Mountaineering Commendation to six climbers involved in a failed attempt to rescue a fellow mountaineer high on Annapurna last year.


Simon Anthamatten, Alexey Bolotov, Don Bowie, Horia Colibasanu, Ueli Steck and Denis Urubko made desperate efforts to help the Spanish climber, Iñaki Ochoa, when he was overcome with altitude sickness - cerebral oedema - at Camp 4 on the mountain. The six climbers commended made desperate efforts to reach and help Ochoa even at extreme risk to their own personal safety, though sadly the Spaniard eventually died despite their help.

The idea behind the new award is, in the words of the Alpine Club, honour people who 'in the true Spirit of Mountaineering, have shown unselfish devotion to help a fellow climber in the mountains, and in doing so have sacrificed their own objective or put their personal safety at risk'.

At a time when high altitude mountaineering has been repeatedly associated with selfishness and disregard for others, it's good to see the Alpine Club emphasising that this isn't always the case.

Full details at the BMC web site: www.thebmc.co.uk