Brit Bids For Youngest K2 Ascent

A 19 year-old Britain who lost three toes to frostbite during a successful ascent of 8501 metre Lhotse has set his sights on becoming the youngest climber to summit K2 according to the BBC (which is under the impression the mountain is called 'Lhosi').

Tom Moores in action everestnews.com

Last year Tom Moores became the youngest ever person to climb Lhotse, part of the Everest massif and a close neighbour of the big one. It wasn't exactly an uncomplicated climb however. The BBC reports that during the descent from the summit, he fell 600 feet and had to wait two hours for rescue, in the course of which he suffered frostbite to his feet, which later resulted in three of them being amputated. He was then helicoptered out to Kathmandu with a suspected torn windpipe.

Moores was part of an expedition guided by American mountaineer Gary Pfisterer, which was contributing a series of dispatches to the everestnews.com web site. In one of them, Tom Moores describes his experience of the mountain including his successful summit bid and the fall from above Camp 4, which happened when his crampons balled-up with snow:

'I was shocked at just how fast I accelerated down the slope. I tried to put in an ice axe arrest but with my hands in huge down mitts I couldn't hold onto it.' He says. 'I began tumbling, convinced I was going all the way to the bottom of the 1500 meter Lhotse face.'

He lay in the snow, convinced that he was going to die, until Italian mountaineer Simone Moro reached him and helped him down to Camp 4.

You can read the complete story in his own words on everestnews.com.

On the same site, Moores who climbed Ama Dablam at the age of 18, describes his plans to climb K2 as part of a non-commercial expedition with Pfisterer this year - now cancelled - without using suplementary oxygen or sherpas above base camp.