Climbers in China (Tibet) – One body found
Posted by planetultramarathon on December 27, 2006
climbers in China…BEIJING, China (AP) — The body of a U.S. climber missing for more than a
month has been found on a remote mountain in southwestern China while a second
climber is still missing and presumed dead, a rescue coordinator said
Wednesday.
Christine Boskoff, a top female climber, and Charlie Fowler, a well-known
climber, guide and photographer, were reported missing after they failed to
return to the United States on December 4.
“They don’t know which body yet. The rescuers were told to take pictures
without disturbing anything. They will go back up in the morning with shovels,”
said Arlene Burns, a friend of both climbers.
“The other body could be under the snow or could be connected by a rope,”
Burns said from Telluride, Colorado, where she was helping coordinate the rescue
effort.
“We are tremendously sad they are not coming home, but they were doing what
they loved,” she said. “For these guys, they were there by choice, climbing
beautiful, pristine peaks with someone they respected at the top of their
skills.”
Burns said it was too early to say what happened to the two, if they were hit
by an avalanche, slipped or encountered some other problem.
“Whether they fell off the face or were swept off the face, we don’t know,”
she said.
The body was found at the 5,300-meter (17,390-foot) level on Genie Mountain,
also known as Genyen Peak, not far from the Sichuan border with Tibet. The
mountain is 6,204 meters (20,354 feet) tall.
Burns said it was most likely the searchers found the body because something
stood out in a blanket of white snow.
Unlike the case of the missing climbers on Mount Hood in Oregon, the search
has been complicated because the two did not leave detailed plans and rescuers
initially did not even know which province in southwestern China to search.
But a clue to their whereabouts emerged several days ago when rescue workers
found a driver who had dropped the pair off near the mountain on Nov. 11.
Boskoff and Fowler told him they would climb the mountain and that he could
meet them on November 24 so they could pick up their bags, but they did not
show up.
Boskoff has ascended six of the world’s peaks over 26,000 feet, including
Mount Everest. She owns Mountain Madness, a Seattle adventure travel company.
Fowler is an expert on climbing in southwestern China. He has guided climbers
up Everest and climbed some of the tallest and most difficult peaks.
Burns said both climbers have homes in Norwood, Colorado.
http://www.teluguportal.net/modules/news/article.php?storyid=26706
