Friends gathered at base camp on K2 on August 9th to honour the memory of Swedish mountaineer and professional skier Fredrik ”Frippe” Ericsson who fell to his death while attempting to become the first man to ski down from the summit of the mighty 28,253-foot K2 (8,611 metres), the world’s second tallest peak.  He was 35.

Fredrik Ericsson, scales Laila Peak. K2 peak is in the background. photo: Trey Cook.

Accroding to his webiste, at about 1:30 am, on August 6th, Ericsson and two other climbers set up from camp 4 at about 8,000 metres to move to the summit. The weather was less than ideal. They decided to make their way back to base camp when it was reported that Ericsson was fixing rope to the rock in the bottle neck when he lost purchase and was unable to arrest his fall sometime between 7 and 8 am.

It was later determined he fell about 1 000 m and did not survive. Ericsson’s decided to leave his body in the mountains, recovering it would prove to be quite dangerous at this time.

The Swedish ski mountaineer was on the first leg of an attempt to ski the world’s three highest mountains.

View of K2 peak where Fredrik Ericsson perished earlier this month. Photo Trey Cook

Ericsson was acclimating on K2 ahead of his attempt to climb to the summit and ski down it a year after he abandoned a previous attempt when his ski partner on that trip, Michele Fait, was lost and died on the mountain.

Last year Ericsson’s bid was curtailed when his Italian climbing partner Michele Fait died while skiing down from K2′s C2 on the SSE spur.

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