When a Climber Dies on K2 is Anyone to Blame?
This past July, Ali Akbar Sakhi, a 36-year-old father of three, died on K2 after spending a night alone at seven thousand meters. Questions remain about what, if anything, could have been done to save him.
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Ali Akbar Sakhi was an enthusiastic mountaineer with big dreams. By the time the Afghani was 36-years-old, he had climbed a number of high-altitude peaks, including 7,492-meter Nawshakh, the tallest in his home country. An ambitious climber, he had his sights set on still bigger mountains. So in 2022, he hired the Pakistan-based Karakorum Expeditions (KE) to help him climb 28,251-foot K2, the world’s second tallest mountain, and one of its deadliest.
In late June, he trekked to base camp with a handful of other climbers, guides, and porters. There, he joined the rest of the KE team, a group of about 15 that included chairman and team leader Mirza Ali and Dhaulat Muhammad, who would accompany Sakhi and act as his high altitude porter (HAP). Base camp was busy. Over 100 climbers from about 20 different expeditions had set up tents on the Baltoro Glacier, at the foot of K2. Many, including Sakhi, planned to climb the Abruzzi Spur, the most common route up the mountain.
K2 was Sakhi’s first 8,000 meter peak and he wanted to climb it without supplemental oxygen. But early on it became clear to those around him that he might not be at the extremely high level of fitness required for such a task. On the first acclimatization round—a 1,000-meter push from base camp to Camp 1 at 6,000 meters—Michael Pfeiffer, a longtime KE client from Denmark, remembers Sakhi lagging hours behind the others.
“After the first rotation, I said, ‘Are you sure you’re up for this, mate?’” Pfeiffer says. Sakhi waved off the concern and pushed onward but the pattern continued. “He was by far the slowest climber on the team,” says Pfeiffer. Sakhi was always telling the others to go on ahead, and that he’d catch up at his own pace. A Pakistani fellow climber, Naila Kiani, found the determination inspiring; Pfeiffer found it troubling.
By July 20, Sakhi and Muhammad were climbing at 7,000 meters, hoping to make it to Camp 3 by nightfall.
Sakhi was in bad shape. For the previous few days, witnesses say, he had been suffering from a persistent cough—perhaps the early stages of acute mountain sickness. Now, with just 150 vertical meters to go to reach Camp 3, he’d begun to experience chest pain. According to Muhammad, Sakhi said he was having a heart issue and sat down in the snow.
Sakhi and Muhammad were alone and didn’t have any supplemental oxygen. The rest of the KE team had gone ahead to Camp 3, hoping to beat an incoming windstorm. Around 8:30 P.M., Sakhi allegedly told his porter he was unable to go on. Shortly after that, Muhammad continued climbing, leaving Sakhi behind.
According to an official report by KE, Muhammad had intended to go for help. “[When] the extreme blizzard started raging on the mountain, Ali was very slow and couldn’t move,” the report reads. “Ali’s guide headed to Camp 3 to get extra support.”
“By 9:00 P.M., [Sakhi’s] high altitude porter turned up in Camp 3,” says Pfeiffer, who had gotten to the camp about three hours earlier, joining KE climber Samina Baig, who was supported by several guides and accompanied by a full expedition team and was hoping to become the first Pakistani woman to summit K2. (Baig is also Mirza Ali’s sister.) Pfeifer estimates there were at least 150 people in Camp 3 that night. By the time Muhammad arrived at Camp 3, the storm was in full force and Baig recalls “extremely” high winds.
“Nobody was coming out from their tents,” she says. Around this time, Pfeiffer asked Muhammad about Sakhi’s whereabouts. Contrary to what the KE report states, Pfieffer doesn’t remember Muhammad bursting into camp or drumming up support to go save Sakhi. Instead, he remembers Muhammad saying that Sakhi was probably a few hours behind, as usual, and that he’d told his porter to go on without him.
So the rest of the climbers settled into their tents, stripped off their boots, and got ready for bed. One hundred and fifty meters below, Sakhi lay in the snow, alone.
***
Several hours passed and Sakhi still had not turned up at camp. Eventually, Pfeiffer says, two KE guides started putting on boots and getting ready to go and search for him. But the wind was still at gale force and, Pfeiffer says, they weren’t even sure where Sakhi was.
“Although Sakhi’s HAP last saw him a few hours earlier we had no idea where he was or whether he’d tried to descend to Lower Camp 3,” Pfeiffer says, referring to a small and less-frequently used camp between Camp 2 and Camp 3.
What if Sakhi had successfully descended to Lower Camp 3, they wondered, and they all risked their lives for nothing? This was perhaps unlikely, given the technical nature of what’s known as the Black Pyramid, a particularly tricky section between Camp 3 and Lower Camp 3. But such a scenario isn’t impossible. After a long discussion, the small search party decided that it was too dangerous to go out in such conditions at over 7,000 meters and that they should wait until morning.
The sun came up just before 6:00 and at 7:30 Pfieffer descended with two guides. The Danish climber was abandoning his summit push and the guides planned to locate Sakhi. Thirty minutes below Camp 3, they spotted a figure beside the fixed ropes, crumpled in the snow.
“I think, ‘Oh my god, it’s Sakhi.’ I start chanting his name—‘Ali, Ali, Ali,’—but there’s no response,” says Pfeiffer. “I think he’s dead. But then I see him move, and I stop, and I start asking him, ‘How are your feet? How are your hands, can you feel them?’ He looked up at me, and he looked absolutely horrified. You see animals in cages—he looked exactly like that.”
Sakhi told Pfeiffer that he was alright except for his heart. The guides gave him food and oxygen. Then, they got him on his feet and began to descend, but after about 50 meters, Sakhi collapsed on the rope, clutching at his chest.
Sakhi died shortly after and was moved to the side of the fixed ropes and anchored to a rock nearby. Climbers marched up and down past his body all day.
***
It was a busy week on K2—145 climbers summited on July 22 alone—and most of the headlines were about long, single-file queues and piles of garbage at Camps 1 and 2. Others focused on Baig, who became the first Pakistani woman to summit K2, or Kiani, who was just behind her. Sakhi’s death was barely mentioned. Then, in late November, Sakhi’s widow, Karima Sakhi, sent an email to Explorersweb, a website that reports on expedition news.
“I really want the world to know what happen [sic] to him and how he died,” Karima wrote to Explorersweb. “He was left alone only 150m below Camp 3. No one helped him. No one went to look for him for 12 hours.”
Karima alleged that Sakhi’s laptop was broken when it was returned to her, and that his cameras had had their memory cards removed. But the videos she found on Sakhi’s phone made her question KE’s side of the story. In one clip, she says, Sakhi told the camera that his porter was inexperienced and wasn’t sure where they were. In another, Sakhi told her he was feeling fine.
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The website published an article in December pointing out a number of inconsistencies between KE’s official report and statements from climber’s who were on the mountain. Namely, that the weather may not have been as bad as KE alleged and that Daulat Muhammad may not have actually made any moves to rally a search party. In addition, Karima alleges that neglect was one of the true causes of Sakhi’s death, not heart trouble. “They could have helped him,” Karima told Climbing. “They could have saved him, but instead they chose their egos and selfishness.”
According to Leah Corrigan, an attorney specializing in outdoor recreation, it’s a guide’s job to mitigate inherent risks on a climb. But there’s a crucial distinction: If you’re walking up a mountain with a staff member, but that staff member wasn’t hired specifically for the purpose of mitigating risk, then those are risks you knowingly assume. In his pre-trip intake form, Sakhi requested a “very active Pakistani Sherpa” but, according to Ali, he lacked the funds to pay for a basic, unguided climb, which would have cost $16,000 before the steep 30% off discount KE offered him. (A fully guided climb with KE would have cost between $17,000 and $36,000 in 2022.)
“There’s a huge difference between a high-altitude porter and someone who accompanies you explicitly in the role of a guide,” says Dave Hahn, who’s led dozens of high-altitude expeditions over his 36-year guiding career.
The KE contract that Sakhi signed says that:
Guides leaders and staff may not be present at any time, especially in the case of ‘basic climbs.’…I acknowledge and understand that this is a low budget trip and there may be as few as 1 leader for the group and 1 or less group Guide to every 4 members on the team…I know that the leader may not be climbing and trekking with me for certain times or at any time during the expedition. I know that the group and/or personal Mountain guide (HAP) may not climb or descend with me, that I may at times have to ascend and descend alone…I understand that this is not a climbing school, nor is this a guided expedition…
“Sakhi and I each had regular high-altitude porters,” says Pfeiffer. “Their job is to help carry equipment such as tents, food, and oxygen cylinders, while we carry all our personal equipment. But [this kind of] HAP is not responsible for getting you to the summit. That is very clear in the agreement you sign before you go on such an expedition.”
It’s also clear from local custom. In the Karakorum, where K2 is located, it’s widely understood that a porter’s job is just to carry gear, says Doug Grady, a Seattle-based attorney who has represented guides in legal cases. “Expecting them to do something guide-level is neither fair nor reasonable,” Grady says. “When you expect a porter to be your guide, the benevolence of other expeditions is your only hope of search-and-rescue, and hope is not a strategy.”
While Muhammad was not legally obligated to stay by Sakhi’s side—especially if Muhammad was dangerously fatigued himself—some confusion remains as to why Sakhi wasn’t rescued sooner when KE had several other guides on the mountain at the same time, including seven who were just 150 meters away.
In a phone call with Climbing, KE denied any culpability for Sakhi’s death, arguing instead that Sakhi repeatedly disobeyed the recommendations of more experienced climbers and ignored his porters’ supplications to turn around when he proved slow. Ali says that Karima’s accusations—that KE could have prevented her husband’s death but chose not to, and that the company damaged Sakhi’s electronics—are “absolute lies.” Ali maintained that it was impossible for the guides and porters to dispatch a search party sooner than they did, given the weather and the darkness.
After Explorersweb published their article, KE’s attorneys sent Karima a legal notice requesting a formal apology and $150,000 in defamation charges. Karima, who has recently moved to the U.S. with her sons as refugees from Taliban rule, did not respond to the notice.
Ali told Climbing that he is now conferring with his lawyers to determine whether or not to move forward with a lawsuit. Corrigan, for one, is skeptical that such a suit could be successful. Without an autopsy or very specific evidence proving that Sakhi’s death was due to exposure, she says, “No one will ever be able to fully know exactly why he died.”