Climber tells of harrowing K2 expedition
Before setting out to climb the world's second-highest mountain, K2, last August, climber and physician Eric Meyer, took the advice of another climber and physician, 95-year-old Charles Houston, the first American to lead an expedition up K2 in 1938, and again in 1953.

"Climb for love, not for glory," Meyer said, echoing Houston's advice. "We came to that mountain as strangers, but we left brothers."

Speaking Sunday to attendees at the downtown Salt Lake City Marriott Hotel during the last day of the Outdoor Retailer Winter Market convention, Meyer said he tried to honor those words during his climb up K2.

Of the 29 climbers among eight teams who made it near the mountain's Abruzzi Spur in northern Pakistan near the China border, Meyer was lucky enough to make the descent down. While climbing a mountain as large as K2 begins as a group effort it frays gradually as each climber decides whether to continue toward the summit, where crucial decisions fall under the stress of ever-less oxygen and the body stiffens from cold.

Of the 22 climbers in Meyer's expedition who attempted the summit, nine of the 18 who made it perished on the descent. Two others died traversing the spur's treacherous bottleneck. Meyer, a 44-year-old resident of Steam Boat Springs, Colo., who served his medical residency at the University of Utah, was one of four who decided to turn around before attempting the same bottleneck. Tragic as the expedition's end was,
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Meyer said it expanded his notions of life and nature beyond measure.

"It has very little to do with making the summit, although that's certainly nice to reach," he said. "It's about opening your heart to the experience and to people on the expedition. It reinforces to you the fragility of life, and the importance of living your dreams."

K2's weather is far more unpredictable than that of the world's tallest mountain, Everest. Odds of making it back from K2's 28,250-foot height alive fall by 20 percent on average when climbers make the trek without use of oxygen, an adamant decision of Meyer's nine-person team. Climbers and members of the rescue team instead used a special ColdAvenger® breathing mask developed by Montana-based Talus Outdoor Technologies, which Meyer said served them well.

The convention product tie-in did not predominate the presentation. As a native of Miles City, Mont., Meyer said he was happy to promote a Montana product he found useful. Cold air during high-altitude climbing can lead to life-threatening viral infections and what's known as the "khumbu cough" of chest convulsions so forceful ribs are often broken.

Chris Klinke, a 39-year-old member of Meyer's K2 team who left a corporate job to climb, said he looks forward to climbing Everest with Meyer this March. "It doesn't have anything to do with him being a doctor. Choosing your climbing partners is all about trust, and the trust you're willing to commit," Klinke said.
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