Denver: Colorado climber Christopher Kulish has 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 Mark Kulish said Monday. The 62-year-old attorney died Monday at a camp below the summit during his descent. The cause isn’t yet known, said, Mark.
Christopher had just reached the top of Mount Everest with a small group after crowds of hundreds of climbers congested the 8,850-metre peak last week, his brother said.
“He (Christopher) 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 said in a statement.
Mark described his brother as an attorney in his ‘day job’ who was ‘an inveterate climber of peaks in Colorado, the West and the world over’. “He passed away doing what he loved, after returning to the next camp below the peak,” Mark stated.
About half a dozen climbers died on Mount Everest last week, 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.
AP