Climbing
A Boulder, CO climber became the 11th victim in the last 10-days when he died shortly after getting to the top of Mount Everest and achieving his dream of scaling the highest peaks on each of the seven continents, his brother said Monday.
Christopher Kulish, a 62-year-old Boulder attorney, died Monday at a camp below the summit during his descent. The cause isn’t yet known, said his brother, Mark Kulish of Denver. He had just reached the top of Everest with a small group after crowds of hundreds of climbers congested the 29,035-foot (8,850-meter) peak last week, his brother said.
“He saw his last sunrise from the highest peak on Earth. At that instant, he became a member of the ‘7 Summit Club,’ having scaled the highest peak on each continent,” Mark Kulish said in a statement.
11 climbers have now died on the world’s highest peak in the last 10-days, including Don Cash of Utah, who also had fulfilled his dream of climbing the highest mountains on each continent. Most of them died while descending from the summit during only a few windows of good weather each May.
Most are believed to have suffered from altitude sickness, which is caused by low amounts of oxygen at high elevation and can cause headaches, vomiting, shortness of breath and mental confusion.
