Gerard McDonnell (20 January 1971 – 2 August 2008), Mountaineering and engineer, was the first Irishman to reach the summit of K2,[The most deadly climbing season on K2 was in 1986, when thirteen climbers died in seven separate accidents. See ]
Biography
McDonnell was born in
Kilcornan,
County Limerick.
A decade before his K2 success, he had moved to
Anchorage,
Alaska. He hoped not only to work there but also to develop his skills as a mountaineer. McDonnell was well known in Anchorage's
Irish diaspora. Among his interests was playing the bodhrán in a band. He was described as a "philosopher" and a "great
Storytelling".
McDonnell summited
Mount Everest with Mick Murphy in 2003. He was unsuccessful during an earlier attempt on K2 in 2006 when he was hit by a rock and airlifted to hospital.
Irish President
Mary McAleese was among the dignitaries to pay tribute to him in 2003 upon his successful Everest climb and again in 2008 following his death.
K2
McDonnell's group had been on a mammoth expedition for eight weeks, surviving in sub-zero temperatures. In an online despatch, he said that after the team set 31 July as their date for the summit bid, spirits were high. "Let luck and good fortune prevail, fingers crossed," he wrote.
On 1 August, about twenty-four individuals were at Camp 4, the last camp on the mountain prior to the summit. Confusion at the camp was apparent with climbers claiming after the disaster that a team leader did not set fixed rope lines as others believed he agreed to do so.
Following an avalanche, a serac fell, cutting all the fixed lines on his and his fellow members of the Dutch-led Norit K2 Expedition's
Ger McDonnell's satellite phone was given to Pemba Gyalje, a Nepalese Sherpa on the summit and he brought it along with McDonnell's camera back to base camp.
Investigation
Expedition leader Wilco van Rooijen, a 40-year-old Dutch climber who was airlifted to a military hospital in
Pakistan after surviving the accident, said that poor preparations had contributed to the disaster. He suggested that advance climbers laid ropes in the wrong places on the mountain, hampering the climb of several teams of mountaineers and ultimately contributing to deaths of three of the climbers on his team. "Everything was going well to camp four, and on summit attempt, everything went wrong," said van Rooijen from his hospital bed in the Northern Pakistani town of
Skardu. "The biggest mistake we made was that we tried to make agreements. Everybody had his own responsibility and then some people did not do what they promised. With such stupid things, lives are endangered." He singled out another team for only bringing half the length of rope they were supposed to.
Memorial
McDonnell's mother, brother, partner, van Rooijen and
Pat Falvey later appeared on
The Late Late Show on 3 October 2008. In 2009, a memorial fund was set up in his honour to provide first-aid training and safe climbing technique for high-altitude porters.
Jason Black, from Letterkenny, County Donegal, reached the summit of K2 in July 2018, after attempting the climb on the tenth anniversary of McDonnell's death as a memorial to him. Earlier in the month Black had placed a memorial plaque at the K2 base camp, and carried a piece of climbing gear previously owned by McDonnell during his ascent that had been gifted to him by McDonnell’s mother. That same year, the first anniversary bicycle event in which cyclists travelled from Doolin in Clare to Kilcornan was held.
Depiction in media
In 2012, McDonnell's brother-in-law Damien O'Brien wrote a book about McDonnell, "
The Time Has Come: Ger McDonnell – His Life & Death on K2", published by The Collins Press. The book was launched in McDonnell's hometown of Kilcornan, County Limerick, on Friday 30 March with most of the town in attendance. Mike Barry, the first Irish person to walk to the South Pole, officially launched the book while others in attendance included Clare O'Leary, Wilco van Rooijen, Cas van de Gevel and Maarten van Eck.
A documentary released in 2013 by Nick Ryan, entitled The Summit, highlighted McDonnell's death and the overarching disaster in which he was killed.
See also
Further reading
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"Ger died doing what he loved: touching the void" – Mountaineering Pat Falvey writes comments in the Irish Independent, 4 August 2008
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"Dreamers who risk death to feel most alive" – Derek Fanning writes for the Irish Independent, 10 August 2008
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"The Time Has Come: Ger McDonnell ‑ His Life And His Death on K2" by Damien O'Brien, Gerard's brother-in-law. Published by Collins Press (2012).[3]
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"Surviving K2" by Wilco van Rooijen (one of the survivors). Publisher: National Geographic.[4]
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The Summit: How Triumph Turned To Tragedy on K2's Deadliest Days by Pat Falvey and Pemba Gyalje Sherpa (a member of the Norit team). Published by The O'Brien Press and Beyond Endurance Publishing (2013). [5] [6]
External links
