Alex Lowe in 1995 (l., with Conrad Anker)

Glaciers are constantly moving. And so they spit out one day what they once swallowed. Climate change, which makes glaciers melt faster, is speeding up the process. In recent years there have been more and more reports from around the world that bodies of dead climbers were discovered after many years. Whether on Mont Blanc, on the Matterhorn, on Mount Everest – or now on the eight-thousander Shishapangma in Tibet. The Alex Lowe Charitable Foundation announced that Swiss Ueli Steck and German David Goettler had discovered the bodies of two climbers in blue ice during their acclimatization for Shishapangma South Face. The melting glacier would release the corpses soon. The description of clothes and packs left no doubt that it was the bodies of Alex Lowe and David Bridges, it was said.

Pilgrimage to Shishapangma

Along with their compatriot Conrad Anker, the two Americans had been caught and buried in an avalanche in the South Face of Shishapangma on 5 October 1999. Only Anker had been able to free himself from the snow masses, badly injured. Lowe, at that time 40 years old and one of the best climbers in the world, had planned to ski down the South Face. Bridges had joined the team as a cameraman. Later Conrad Anker married Lowe’s widow Jennifer and adopted the three sons of the couple. “Conrad, the boys and I will make our pilgrimage to Shishapangma,” Jennifer Lowe-Anker said, after she had received Ueli’s and David’s message. “It is time to put Alex to rest.” And Anker added: “After 16 ½ years this brings closure and relief for me and Jenni and for our family.”