Photos: AlexLowe.org
According to reports coming out of Central Asia, the remains of iconic climber Alex Lowe and Californian David Bridges, who were swept away by an avalanche in 1999 during an American ski mountaineering expedition to Tibet’s Shishapangma, were found this week.
Lowe, 40 at the time, was with Bridges (a climber and cinematographer) and climbing partner/friend Conrad Anker. They were all part of a nine-member team attempting the first American ski descent of the 26,289-foot peak. According to Rock and Ice, the three were crossing a glacier at around 19,000 feet when a cornice broke off some 6,000 feet above them that triggered a slide, taking Bridges and Lowe with it. Anker was injured but not buried. The team searched for the two missing climbers but to no avail and their remains were hidden under ice and snow for the last 16 years.
Until this week when Swiss climber Ueli Steck and his German partner, David Göttler, discovered the remains on the glacier while acclimatizing for an attempt on the mountain’s south face. The two contacted Anker, describing the packs and clothing the two wore. Anker was then able to confirm the grim find.
Anker, who fell in love with, and married, Lowe’s widow Jenni, helping to raise his three boys, was in Nepal just before the discovery, working for the Alex Lowe Charitable Foundation he and Jenni founded together.
“He (Steck) said, ‘We came across two bodies,’” Anker told Outside magazine. “They were close to each other. Blue and red North Face backpacks. Yellow Koflach boots. It was all that gear from that time period. They were pretty much the only two climbers who were there.” Anker added that he hadn’t seen photos, and the bodies hadn’t been tested, but he’s convinced. “We’re pretty sure it’s them,” he said.
Lowe’s climbing at the time was on another level from the rest of the world.
He lived in Bozeman, Montana and regularly trained in nearby Hyalite Canyon. He was an extremely versatile climber, having equal skill on both rock, ice and alpine, not to mention being a gifted skier. He was accomplished, to say the least having notched the first solo ascent in winter of the Grand Teton’s North Face, the first ascent of the Northwest Face of Trango Tower in Pakistan, a solo up the Matterhorn’s North Face as well as a pair of Everest summits.
