Gerard McDonnell was drawn to a summit scaled by fewer than 200 people on which over 50 mountaineers have died, writes Lorna Siggins
"SIN é anois a chairde. Tá an t-am ag teacht." (That's it now friends. The time is coming.)
So wrote Gerard McDonnell in one of his last dispatches from the world's second highest mountain, K2, before leaving on a summit bid late last week.
A day later, on Friday August 1st, he and fellow climbers on the international Norit K2 expedition were reported to have reached the 8,611m (28,250ft) summit, along with Norwegian and French colleagues.
With McDonnell was his leader, Dutch mountaineer Wilco Van Rooijen, who has climbed Everest without supplementary oxygen and had attempted K2 twice before. Van Rooijen survived the ice fall, but is reportedly suffering from frostbite.
"Ger met Wilco there two years ago, and like him, he found the challenge irresistible," according to Irish Everest summiteer Mick Murphy, who was with McDonnell on his first attempt on K2 in 2006. The pair had to abandon their effort when McDonnell was struck on the head, with Murphy assisting McDonnell's descent until he was airlifted to hospital.
A week later, Newry mountaineer Terence "Banjo" Bannon was forced to retreat from K2 also when an avalanche hit his team of nine climbers from Russia and Poland on the summit approach. Four of the Russians were reported missing. "There is no mountain worth a fingernail - and there are four lads who have lost their lives," Bannon told the BBC immediately afterwards, swearing he would never return there.
Murphy understands why the Limerick climber was pulled back to the peak known as "the savage mountain" in the Karakorum range on the Pakistan-Chinese border.
First climbed in 1954 by two Italians, Lino Lacadelli and Achille Compagnoni, K2 is regarded as the world's toughest 8,000-metre peak, due to steeper routes and colder, more unpredictable weather than on Everest.
It has recorded far fewer successful summits - less than 200 compared with 1,400 for Everest. Over 50 climbers have died, almost half of these while descending.
Of five women who had reached the top before the start of this season, three died on descent, including Britain's Julie Tullis and Alison Hargreaves. The other two women have since perished on 8,000-metre peaks.
The mountain's "Bottleneck" at 8,300 metres is described as the "crux". The 100-metre couloir is exposed, with "bottomless snow and ice", and many of the climbers who lost their lives did so at this hazardous section.
The remote location is said to have inspired the Shangri-La described by James Hilton in Lost Horizon. Inaccessibility adds to the challenge, says Murphy.
Climbers can be caught for up to six weeks on its north side when the rivers in the Shaksgam valley flood and camels hired to carry mountaineering gear cannot traverse.
The Pakistan approach on the south side is more frequently used by mountaineering teams in July and August, with the nearest village being six to eight days away from base camp. Like the Sherpas, the Balti who provide porter services in the Karakorum are indispensable for international climbers.
"On any mountain, you always have to feel that you can retrace your steps, but K2 isn't quite like that," Mick Murphy explains. "It's a bit of a cliché to say it, but descending any mountain is always more dangerous, partly because one is exhausted.
"At the same time, it looks as if this group was caught in an ice fall by pure chance - there would have been a build-up of snow over several weeks, and it may be the only ice fall of its type for days or even this year. The bigger the challenge, the bigger the reward, and that was the appeal for Ger. It was never for media attention though," Murphy says. "He just loved to push himself."