In the darkness, they appeared. Over 150 men and women cautiously advanced across the ice, grasping ropes anchored to the mountainside just hours before.
Some had waited months for this climb. They had a narrow window: the wind had finally eased on the morning of July 26, giving climbing teams their first chance of the season to summit K2—the King of Mountains—in the Pakistani-administered Kashmir region.
They had been informed a storm would sweep the mountain on the 28th. If they didn’t summit K2 now, they would have to wait until next year.
Leading the way was the rope-fixing team—a carefully selected group of the strongest Sherpas and guides. Battling deep snow, they forged a path by securing ropes along the rocky Abruzzi Spur—the most popular route to K2’s summit.
Behind them, a string of headlamps illuminated the Pakistani flank like fireflies in the mist. They kept climbing. The line included driven athletes, Sherpa people (an ethnic group from eastern Nepal), Western mountain guides, and foreign clients.
Near the front was Norwegian climber Kristin Harila. At sunrise, she and her guide, Tenjen “Lama” Sherpa, would become the fastest people ever to summit all 14 of the world’s highest peaks.
Then there was Mohammad Hassan. A Pakistani porter tasked with carrying equipment for the rope-fixing team. This was the 27-year-old who found himself among elite climbers and Harila in the frigid heights.
Later, Mohammad would be found upside down that night, slumped above 8,000 meters, dangling over a crevasse, his face buried in snow.
Mohammad lying on the route to the summit of K2.
By the end of the climbing season, at least 102 people had conquered K2. All the climbers descended safely and gathered at base camp. Mohammad did not.
His death would send shockwaves through the mountaineering world in the weeks to come and eventually become a global focal point. The climbers who summited K2 that day found themselves at the center of a fierce debate.
K2 is not Everest. Or rather, Everest is not K2.
“People say if you want to brag, climb Everest. If you want respect, climb K2,” said climbing coach Alan Arnette, a mountaineer since 1997 and the oldest American to summit K2.
K2 is significantly more difficult and technically demanding than Earth’s highest peak. Everest has a fatality rate of around 3%, while K2’s was 25% before 2021. It now fluctuates around 18% after K2 became a much more popular choice for climbers.
Mohammad and Jutta Vanessa Tørkel.
“K2 is only 243 meters shorter than Everest, but it is incredibly steep. Steep at the beginning, steep in the middle, and steep at the end,” Arnette said. Everest, by contrast, has many relatively flat sections.
K2’s weather is notoriously unpredictable. Westerly winds entering the Karakoram range slam directly into K2, creating vortexes and increasing avalanche risk.
Given these factors, climbers wait for winds under 48 km/h and seize those narrow windows to push for the summit.
“This year was very unusual, with only one day in the season, July 27, when the winds were weak enough,” Arnette said.
Most teams believed July 27 was the last viable summit day of the year.
With most climbers thinking they had only one chance that year, the route up K2 became packed with people.
Oswaldo Friere, an Ecuadorian mountaineering guide with Nepal’s Seven Summit Treks, said that this season, he counted at least 41 tents at Camp 3, the final rest stop before K2’s summit. That meant 120 to 160 people were poised for the summit push.
A climber for 31 years, Friere was a member of the rope-fixing team for the section between the lower and upper camps.
The risks on K2 were complex. Heavy snowfall had occurred days earlier, leaving little time to pack down trails and secure footing.
Those aiming for the summit would have to climb from Camp 3, then ascend the deadly ice and rock wall known as the Bottleneck, traverse a steep ridge, and walk for another two hours up 60-degree slopes.
With more people on the trail at night, the risk of avalanches or rockfall increased significantly.
Sensing the danger, Friere prepared to pack his gear and descend to Camp 3.
Ultimately, he decided to attempt the summit to help his friend Westlake—the youngest American woman to summit Everest who was aiming for a similar record on K2. They would try for the top but agreed to assess conditions as they climbed.
By the afternoon of July 26, a large number of climbers had left Camp 3 for the summit. Friere estimated Mohammad and the rope-fixing team were among the first groups to start moving before 3:30 p.m.
Friere and Westlake departed at midnight, hoping to be hours ahead of other teams and thus making the climb safer. They were wrong. Flämig and Steindl, two Austrian climbers who turned back at The Shoulder area, had captured drone footage of the route as they descended. Reviewing the footage at camp the next day, they were horrified.
One by one, climbers stepped over the dying man’s body and continued. They did not stop.
The drone footage showed dozens of climbers passing Mohammad, seemingly ignoring the porter as he lay dying on the route.
For Flämig and Steindl, the ethical code of mountaineering was being violated before their eyes. Steindl said an effort should have been made to bring Mohammad down as soon as possible. “But if a rescue mission had started at that point, those behind the traffic jam would have had to turn around and descend. No one could have summited. I don’t know if he could have been brought down alive. But a rescue attempt certainly should have been made. If someone is dying, it’s normal to stop the expedition to bring them down. But people didn’t stop,” he said.
The climbers were clients of at least five companies who summited K2 by the end of that month. Harila broke her world record, and Doe reached the K2 summit for the first time.
At the summit, Tarso encountered Harila and Tenjen and told them Mohammad was still alive but in terrible condition.
Harila added that she had received word from her support team via satellite phone that everyone was okay. But when she descended and returned to the route, Mohammad was dead. His companion was nowhere to be seen.
As it turned out, the storm thought to be sweeping the area on the 28th never materialized. Some remaining climbers successfully summited K2 in the following days, bringing the total for the year to at least 102.
Video shows climbers stepping over Mohammad to conquer K2:
But back at base camp, Mohammad’s death weighed heavily on the climbers’ minds. Some were haunted by having to step over Mohammad as he suffered. Mohammad had tried to call for help.
While death is an accepted risk in 8,000-meter climbing, Westlake said the issue was that people stepped over a man who was still alive and dying, and who died hours later.
Some expedition companies held celebratory fireworks parties for clients who had summited K2, despite the somber mood. Steindl was appalled, telling Business Insider: “A man died, but the people celebrating stepped over him to reach the summit. Now they are celebrating success?”
Steindl recounted that on the descent, he and Flämig met a friend of Mohammad’s family. This person told them where the deceased porter’s family lived. They, along with Tarso, went to the village of Tisar to offer condolences.
Mohammad’s death left behind three young sons, a widow, and an elderly mother with diabetes.
Steindl launched a GoFundMe for Mohammad’s family, which has since raised over $150,000 for legal fees, education, and future family expenses.
Mohammad was a shy, quiet man in his 20s when Norwegian climber Jutta Vanessa Tørkel first met him in 2017.
She was visiting the Karakoram region with her husband, and Mohammad was one of the porters for their group.
The couple befriended Mohammad and the other porters. They were people living in extreme poverty, making arduous carries to camps in conditions lacking proper safety equipment.
Mohammad was acutely aware of his low social status as a poor villager in Pakistan, always bowing his head, smiling, and following others’ instructions.
Tørkel said this was Mohammad’s first year assigned to work high on K2. To her, it made no sense for Mohammad to be doing this job as they were not as acclimatized to high-altitude life as Sherpas.
Mohammad typically did seasonal construction work in Shigar Valley and went to K2 each climbing season. Like other porters, he was paid $70 for three weeks to ferry equipment to camps.
That was significant money for someone like Mohammad. If lucky, they could earn up to $20 a day, totaling $840 for a full climbing season.
Porters are not members of any expedition team, working more like freelancers.
The company that hired Mohammad was Lela Peak Expedition. A porter who worked with Mohammad said high-altitude porters were given $750 this year for gear, but for unknown reasons, Mohammad did not have a full-body suit.
But Mohammad pressed on. This was his first time being paid as a high-altitude porter.
Lacking significant climbing experience and proper gear, it’s unclear why Mohammad was sent to assist the rope-fixing team above 8,000 meters.
Veteran climbers say fixing ropes is the hardest work on the mountain.
Even knowing they were facing grave danger, most porters tend to follow the orders of their Pakistani employers. Many are born into low social status and are sometimes treated as disposable resources in the local community.
As news of Mohammad’s death spread along with the video of climbers stepping over him, the K2 climbers quickly became targets of global online outrage.
Steindl and Flämig gave interviews to Austrian newspapers, emphasizing that Mohammad should have been rescued.
The exact cause of Mohammad’s death remains unclear.
Many argue that rescuing Mohammad would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible. However, if Mohammad had been a foreign climber and a member of an expedition team, he might have had a better chance of survival.
Mohammad’s death is an indelible stain and a disgrace for the mountaineering community. Steindl said he worries for the future of the sport. “I think the system there failed. Because no one felt responsible. That’s the big problem. You have to stop and say: ‘No one passes this point. You turn back and we bring him down, we try to help him,’” he said.
The K2 incident has left many in the mountaineering world deeply ashamed.
The commercialization of 8,000-meter peaks, where companies pour manpower onto deadly mountains to pave the way for amateur clients, has increased the number of inexperienced climbers reliant on support. Though Pakistan’s climbing industry is decades behind Nepal’s, K2 is becoming a hotspot like Everest for thrill-seeking tourists.
Arnette argues governments should limit the number of climbers allowed on high peaks, especially K2. He says all parties involved, from porters to clients to guides, must be fully aware of all the specific dangers on high mountains.
“If you go on an 8,000-meter mountain and don’t think you could die, you shouldn’t be there,” he said.