Mountain Climber Alex Lowe Believed Dead in Avalanche

Alex Lowe, one of America’s strongest and best-known mountain climbers, was believed killed with another climber Tuesday in an avalanche in the Himalayas in Tibet.

Lowe, 40, of Bozeman, Mont., and another member of the American Shishapangma Ski Expedition, Dave Bridges, 29, a cameraman from Aspen, Colo., were scaling 26,291-foot Shishapangma when the avalanche struck early Tuesday morning. A third member of the climbing team, Conrad Anker, also from Colorado, was caught in the avalanche but was able to return to the base camp with minor injuries, Andrew McLean told MountainZone.com, the expedition’s sponsor, via satellite telephone.

McLean, the expedition leader, said the avalanche struck the climbers above Advance Base Camp on the upper slopes.

McLean said expedition members still on the mountain reported that the climbing team had split into two groups from their 18,000-foot camp, in search of a route up the mountain.

At 19,000 feet, with teams on separate sides of a glacier, the climbers spotted the beginning of the avalanche about 6,000 feet above them, McLean said. The teams dispersed, but the avalanche struck Lowe’s group. Anker was thrown more than 100 feet and was partially buried.

Lowe and Bridges have not been found, and the search for their bodies has been abandoned because of hazardous conditions on the mountain.

The expedition had as its goal not only climbing Shishapangma, the 14th-highest mountain in the world, but skiing down it. Bridges was part of a three-man film crew that was documenting the climb.

In an interview last month with the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, Lowe described the traditional route up Shishapangma as “not extremely difficult.” But he said that his team planned to take a steeper, more unconventional route up the mountain’s south face before skiing down.

“If successful, it will be the first time Americans have skied off an 8,000-meter peak,” Lowe said.

Lowe, married with three children, was a well-known figure in the mountain-climbing community. In an article in Climbing magazine in 1997, Alison Osius, the president of the American Alpine Club, called Lowe “America’s most gifted all-around climber.”

Lowe’s latest achievement was the first-time ascent this summer of the northwest face of 20,618-foot Great Trango Tower in Pakistan, a vertical slab of granite. His ascent was watched daily by people on the Internet, where Lowe posted a daily e-mail diary along with digital photos. Many people sent emotional e-mail messages of support as he ascended.

Similar Internet access was part of the Shishapangma climb, which also was sponsored by the North Face clothing and equipment company and NBC.

Lowe’s climbing career spanned 25 years. He logged alpine climbs in France, Kyrgyzstan, Peru, Canada, Nepal, Pakistan and Antarctica. He reached the summit of Mt. Everest twice.

He was a member of North Face’s “Dream Team”--the best-known climbers in the country--and was under contract to test and promote the sale of North Face products.

Bridges, 29, was a veteran of eight expeditions to the Himalayas and Karakoram and had reached the summits of Annapurna IV, Ama Dablam, Baruntse and Makalu. In 1994, he was the leader of the successful American K-2 South Spur Expedition.

He had turned to film work and specialized in high-altitude photography. He was a two-time national para-gliding champion and a partner in an Aspen para-gliding company.