Time to tell a story of heroism and tragedy on K2

AS he descended K2, the world’s most dangerous mountain, Limerick’s Ger McDonnell encountered a shocking sight: three distraught climbers suspended upside down. The two Koreans and their Nepalese Sherpa had become entangled on a fixed rope when returning from the summit and were dangling for almost four hours. A member of their party had already fallen to his death.
The previous day, August 1 2008, McDonnell became the first Irish person in history to reach the mountain’s 8,611m/28,251ft peak. Although he had never met any of the climbers stranded before him, McDonnell spent nine hours – three with the help of an Italian climber – at almost five miles above sea level freeing them. Tragically, shortly after the rescue, an ice-fall killed McDonnell and the climbers he had saved.
Written by his brother-in-law, Damien O’Brien, The Time Has Come is a new book celebrating McDonnell’s life and meticulously reconstructing the events leading to his death on K2, known as ‘The Savage Mountain’, on the day when a total of 11 climbers were killed in one of the worst accidents in recent climbing history.
While McDonnell’s family grappled with their heartbreaking loss, their pain was intensified by the confusion surrounding his death. McDonnell was descending with Italian climber Marco Confortola when they met the three trapped men. After three hours trying to untangle them, Confortola made his way down the mountain but McDonnell climbed back up towards the summit to continue the rescue effort. Crucially, McDonnell didn’t communicate this to Confortola and the misunderstanding fuelled rumours that the Limerick man was disoriented due to a lack of oxygen or that he refused to descend.
“We needed to find out the truth,” says Damien, of his decision to travel to Pakistan with some members of the family immediately after the accident.
“We were getting second and third-hand information. No one had any definite answers or proof. Ger wasn’t declared dead at any stage. We needed to hear from people who were in the know.”
The evidence of Pemba Gyalje, a Nepalese Sherpa, revealed the real story of McDonnell’s final hours. Pasang Bhote ascended the mountain attempting to rescue the Korean party and their Sherpa when he encountered them on the way down, with McDonnell behind [he identified McDonnell by his climbing suit: red with black patches].
Bhote communicated the scene to Pemba Gyalje via radio and witnessed the ice fall that killed McDonnell and that would subsequently claim the lives of the Koreans, their Sherpa and Bhote himself.
The testimony confirmed that McDonnell had saved three lives after he parted from Confortola.
“The most important thing for us was just trying to find the reason why he went back up,” explains Damien, who works for Pfizer Nutritionals in Askeaton. Until the motivation behind McDonnell’s decision was established, the media’s reporting of his death – implying McDonnell had acted irrationally – hurt the family considerably. “If we hadn’t gone to Pakistan and if we hadn’t met Pemba,” he says, “we definitely wouldn’t have found out the truth of what happened to Ger.”
As the author discovered while interviewing McDonnell’s friends for the book, which also draws on eyewitness accounts of surviving climbers from the fateful day and McDonnell’s own expedition logs, the generosity the 37-year-old displayed on K2 was consistent with his approach since his first major climb, in 1999, when he reached the highest peak in North America, Mt McKinley.
“Ger never told the family stories of rescuing people on mountains,” says Damien. “It was an eye-opener for all of us. It gave us a broader insight into Ger’s character outside of family life. An unwritten law of high-altitude climbers is ‘everyman for himself’. But that was never the case with Ger. He had a repeated history of always looking out for other people – on and off the mountain. And it was probably his kindness that killed him.”
A native of Kilcornan in west Limerick, McDonnell studied electronic engineering in Dublin City University (DCU). After winning a visa, he moved to the US in 1994 and settled in Alaska.
The idea for the book was born at the inaugural presentation of a DCU scholarship in honour of McDonnell. After meeting many of his college friends and hearing their stories, Damien O’Brien suggested compiling a booklet of these for the family. His email requests for reminisces about McDonnell generated an enormous response. “So the little booklet became a book all of a sudden,” says Damien. “It was definitely a story I thought needed to be told, especially since Ger is gone.”
Ger McDonnell emerges from the book as warm, passionate and a keen practical joker. “Everyone I interviewed had the same story about Ger, from people in America, people in China, all over the world: that he was a kind-hearted, funny guy,” explains Damien. “He was always the guy who was going to make someone smile in a bad situation. Everyone, of course, spoke about his big, great smile. He had a smile that would light up a room.”
Despite McDonnell’s extensive climbing achievements, including scaling Mount Everest in 2003 with an Irish team, he was never inspired by the accolades that accompanied these feats. Before his 2006 attempt on K2, which was halted by a rock fall that caused him multiple head fractures, he told the press that he didn’t want to get “wrapped up in a race to become the first Irishman to its summit. I’m just there for the climb.” It captured McDonnell’s philosophy. 
“Most high-altitude climbers climb mountains as a business venture,” says Damien. “They make money out of it. But Ger never did that. Ger climbed for the love and the spiritual side of it. He stood on the top of Everest and he said it was like a floating altar. That when he pulled out his dad’s rosary beads – his dad had died in 1991 – that he never felt as close to his dad in his life.”
The Time Has Come: Ger McDonnell – His Life and His Death on K2 is published by The Collins Press.