Bodies of Two Famed Climbers Found 16 Years After Himalaya Avalanche

The bodies of Alex Lowe and David Bridges were found frozen in a glacier in Tibet last week. Photo via Wikipedia.

According to Rock and Ice Magazine, the bodies of renowned mountaineer and climber Alex Lowe and filmmaker David Bridges have been found in melting glacier ice 16 years after an avalanche took both their lives on an expedition to become the first Americans to ski from the summit of 26,335-foot Shishapangma in the Tibetan Himalaya. A pair of European climbers found the bodies late last week frozen in the blue ice of a glacier under Shishapangma as they were acclimatizing.

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Considered one of the best climbers to have ever lived, Lowe and his filmmaking partner and an incredible mountaineer in his own right, David Bridges, were on the nine-person expedition along with Conrad Anker in October of 1999 when a serac broke 6,000 feet above them, triggering an avalanche that buried Lowe and Bridges and threw Anker with its powerful wind blast. The expedition spent 20 hours searching for the two lost climbers, but were ultimately unable to locate them. 

With this discovery comes some measure of closure for the pair's family and friends, and we wish them the best of luck interring this news from the Himalaya.

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stash member Ryan Dunfee

Former Managing Editor at Teton Gravity Research, current Senior Contributor, current professional hippy at the Sierra Club, and avid weekend recreationalist.