The Norwegian climber, who recently became the fastest person to summit the world’s 14 highest peaks, was accused of walking over a dying Sherpa to set the record.
Harila was also criticised for celebrating the world record at the base camp that evening.
On Thursday, Kristin Harila, 37, said in an Instagram post that she and her team “did everything we could for him at the time”, referring to 27-year-old Sherpa Mohammed Hassan.
#K2Trajedy
Top female climber Tamara Lungar exploded on the human tragedy on K2 & behaviour of follow climbers there.
Read her exact words of a true alpinist, who lost a close mate in K2 Winter 2021“ I have now really needed a few days to sort out my thoughts because I am pic.twitter.com/x3L97FLPvw
— The Northerner (@northerner_the) August 10, 2023
What happened?
Harila and her Nepali guide Tenjin “Lama” Sherpa became the fastest people to peak all 14 of the world’s 8,000-metre (26,000 feet) mountains on July 27 after reaching the top of K2 in Pakistan.
They completed the feat in three months and one day. Nepal-born British adventurer Nirmal Purja’s previously held the record of six months and six days, achieved in 2019.
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But controversy emerged on social media after drone footage shared by other climbers showed Harila’s team and others on a narrow, harrowing passage, stepping over the body of Hassan, a Sherpa from another team, who later died.
Harila said she, her cameraman and two others spent “1.5 hours in the bottleneck trying to pull him up” but to no avail.
What have the climbers said?
Her cameraman, identified only as Gabriel, was among those who stayed with Hassan, sharing his oxygen and hot water.
“Considering the amount of people that stayed behind and had turned around, I believed Hassan would be getting all the help he could, and that he would be able to get down,” Harila said, adding that Gabriel left after an hour when he needed “to get more oxygen for his own safety”.
When he caught up with Harila, “we understood that he [Hassan] might not make it down” and that “it was heartbreaking”.
