A series of Czech mountaineering tragedies points to dangers
Mountain-climbing is an extremely popular sport in the Czech Republic, but it brings plenty of dangers, as a number of gruesome headlines have shown in the last few days. Five Czechs died under an avalanche high on a mountainside in Kyrgyzstan, while another Czech was killed after a ten-meter fall in the Slovak High Tatras. In a bleak statistic he became the tenth Czech fatality in the Tatras since the beginning of the year. One of the Czech Republic's best known mountaineers Zdenek Hruby explains why these accidents happen so often.
"There are probably different reasons for such fatal accidents. First of all, statistically, there are more climbers who are traveling to high mountains and who are climbing the highest peaks even in the winter conditions etc. So there is a bigger chance for an accident than before. Second of all, according to my opinion, the weather in mountains and the conditions are changing the shape of glaciers because of global warming. Last but not least you need a luck during the climbing in the mountains."
Can you say something about the Czech mountaineering today, in comparison to what it was, let's say, fifteen years ago?
"There are better conditions and many more chances for the Czech climbers to travel around the world and try to climb on high peaks. Because there are now more people traveling than 15 or 20 years ago, some of them are not experienced enough (I mean they are experienced climbers, but they probably lack the long term experience, which we had in the past). Before we had a chance to climb in Himalaya or in Central Asia mountains, we had had a long experience with climbing in High Tatras or in the Alps here in Europe."
Let's look specifically at the tragedy in Kyrgyzstan. The Czech climbers were part of a group climbing the Chan Tengri Mountain - at a height of about 5.000 meters - when they were buried by an avalanche. Do you think they were just unlucky or did they make any serious errors of judgment?
"As far as I am informed, they did not make any principal mistake. They started very early in the morning at 3 o'clock and the avalanche came at 5 o'clock. That's very pitiful and sad accident. Since I know the 'normal road' on Chan Tengri, I must say that the lower part is really very dangerous; it has always been endangered by avalanches, both from the slopes of Chan Tengri and neighboring Piccha Pike. They were simply in a bad moment in a bad place."
