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There is controversy over the feat of Norwegian climber Kristin Harila, 37, who on July 27, together with her Nepalese sherpa Tenjen, 35, broke the record for having conquered the peaks of all 14 mountains in the world by 8,000 meters in the minor time recorded so far: only three months and one day. The feat ended with the ascent of K2. She was the first woman to break the record of the 14 mountains of 8,000 metres. But just in the last ascent, that of K2, the mountaineer ended up under the accusation of having climbed over a dying Sherpa together with her team on the way to climb to the summit, in order to achieve her goal. Mohammad Hassan, a 27-year-old Pakistani father of three, slipped and fell down a narrow path in a particularly dangerous area known as a “bottleneck”.
The climber: no one is to blame for the tragic death
In an Instagram post on Friday, the Norwegian climber wrote that she felt “angry at the way many people blamed others for this tragic death” and that no one was to blame. Speaking to CNN, Harila insisted that she and her team did everything possible to save Sherpa Hassan and denied being in the footage of the incident circulating. “We didn’t see it fall. We saw him hanging from the rope and we tried to rescue him for many hours,” she told CNN, adding that it was a “very narrow” trail and the conditions this year were exceptionally difficult.
An investigation has been launched in Pakistan
An investigation into the death of Sherpa Mohammed Hassan near the summit of K2 has been launched in Pakistan. Dozens of climbers eager to reach the summit were accused: they would have passed next to the man injured in the course of a fall without giving him assistance, thus leaving him to die.
The allegations have overshadowed the record
The allegations relating to the events of July 27 have overshadowed the record set by Norwegian mountaineer Kristin Harila and her guide Tenjin. By climbing K2 that day, they became the fastest female climbers in the world, scaling the world‘s 14 highest mountains in 92 days.