Re: [at-l] Alex Lowe

[Snodrog5@aol.com]

U.S. Climber Feared Dead in Tibet
c The Associated Press
BOZEMAN, Mont. (AP) - Alex Lowe, described by Outside magazine as the best 
mountain climber in the world, is presumed dead with another climber in a 
Himalayan avalanche. 
A dispatch from the American Shishapangma Ski Expedition, posted on the Web 
site MountainZone.com, said the climbers were struck by an avalanche on 
26,291-foot Shishapangma in Tibet early Tuesday. 

Also missing and presumed dead was cameraman Dave Bridges. The search for 
both men was abandoned because of hazardous conditions on the mountain. 

``I find it hard to believe that Alex could ever be killed,'' said Gordon 
Wiltsie, who climbed with Lowe. ``This is just a cruel reminder that the 
mountains are bigger than any person.'' 

Lowe, 40, of Bozeman, and Bridges, 29, of Aspen, Colo., were swept away along 
with Colorado climber Conrad Anker when the avalanche struck the climbers on 
the mountain's upper slopes, said Andrew McLean, the expedition leader. 

Anker was ``pretty beat up'' but not seriously injured when he was found, 
McLean told MountainZone.com, an expedition sponsor, by satellite telephone. 

The expedition had as its goal not only climbing Shishapangma, the 14th 
highest mountain in the world, but also skiing down it. Bridges was part of a 
three-man film crew. 

Lowe was a celebrity in the mountain climbing community. He is on posters, in 
magazines and on television leading the way up slabs of granite. His 25-year 
career included climbs in five continents, and he twice reached the summit of 
Mount Everest. 

He was called the best climber in the world in a March cover story in Outside 
magazine. 

His is the latest high-profile death in the sport. 

A rash of deaths on Everest in 1996 sent a chill through the climbing 
community. Eight mountaineers died on the 29,028-foot peak on May 10 alone, a 
tragedy described in the best-seller ``Into Thin Air'' by Jon Krakauer. 

The following year, a noted Russian climber who survived the Everest tragedy, 
Anatoli Boukreev, died in an avalanche on the slopes of Mount Annapurna in 
the Himalayas. 

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