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Melting snows shed new light on K2's great mystery

American socialite died at 7,000m trying to impress his ex-wife

A frozen corpse discovered on the slopes of the world's second highest mountain, the Pakistani peak of K2, has finally shed light on one of the last great mysteries of climbing history - the disappearance of the wealthy American socialite Dudley Wolfe more than 60 years ago.

Wolfe disappeared on the upper slopes of K2 in 1939 while on a German-American expedition that only narrowly failed to be the first to conquer the summit.

His death came after he used his wealth and social contacts to be included on the expedition led by a friend, the great German climber Fritz Wiessner. It provoked a scandal in the US and Britain, where Wiessner and one of his deputies, American Jack Durrance, were accused of taking advantage of Wolfe's wealth and then leaving him to die alone in a tent some 7,000 metres up the mountain.

Confirmation that Wolfe's body had been found came yesterday from Araceli Segarra, a Spanish climber who is leading an expedition on the mountain.

Writing in El Mundo newspaper, she told how, last week, two documentary film makers accompanying her on the climb had come across human bones on a glacier. "They were bones from a waist and leg. Alongside them were the remains of a canvas tent, some poles and a cooking pot with its lid bearing the inscription 'Made in India' - which confirmed that it must have come from an expedition before partition when this area became part of Pakistan in 1947," she said.

As the snows melted last week, more evidence emerged. "There were scraps of trouser with a 'Cambridge' label and a gaiter. Then came the irrefutable proof - a mitten with his surname written in capital letters lay on a rock. After 63 years the snow resolved part of a mystery that was written in 1939," she said.

Despite being overweight, unfit and inexperienced, Wolfe had managed to accompany Wiessner and a sherpa, Pasang Kikuli, to a camp more than 7,000 metres above sea level - a height where few modern climbers would stay for long, especially without oxygen.

Too exhausted to go on, he had been left there while Wiessner and Pasang tried to make it to the peak at 8,611 metres - 240 metres short of Everest.

As night fell, Wiessner was just a few hundred metres from his target and wanted to carry on by moonlight. But Pasang insisted they turn back.

They tried again, but failed, the following day and, five days after leaving, Wiessner returned to the camp with the, by then injured, Pasang to find a badly sick Wolfe alone with just a few supplies. No provisions had reached him from lower camps, so all three went down to the next camp, which they found abandoned.

Wolfe was again left on his own while the two others, al ready suffering frostbite, went further down the mountain to find the rest of the team members who, convinced the three men were already dead, had retreated back to the bottom of the mountain.

Wolfe spent a further week high up the mountain on his own before a rescue team of sherpas reached him. He told them he could not start the climb down that day but would try, after eating and drinking, the following day.

The sherpas spent the night at the next camp down and were unable to climb the following day due to bad weather. Three of them set out the following morning to get Wolfe while a fourth descended the mountain. Neither Wolfe nor the three sherpas were seen again.

Now, it seems, the sherpas never reached Wolfe.

"According to the evidence we have found, Wolfe died alone in his tent or near to it," Ms Segarra said.

K2 was not conquered for another 15 years when an Italian team reached the summit in 1954.

On his return, Wiessner published an article in a mountaineering magazine blaming Durrance. Then, five years ago, two American authors laid responsibility for Wolfe's death squarely on the dilettante's own shoulders and on the ambitious Wiessner.

Durrance, an internationally respected climber who had remained silent about the matter, then told the Rocky Mountain News that Wolfe had gone on the expedition in order to try to impress his ex-wife.

"I knew I was not responsible for those men dying. But I never felt I could argue against Wiessner," Durrance explained. "I never felt anyone would listen to me.

"The blame belonged to all of us for accepting a booth on the climb," Durrance said. "Dudley had been divorced, and he was trying to prove something to his wife. He shouldn't have taken our lives and exposed them to the dangers we were exposed to, just to get even with his wife. That was pretty apparent when I first met him on the boat."

Ms Segarra said that she had contacted Wolfe's family and that they were on their way to Pakistan. She expected he would now be buried at the Gilkey memorial - where many other victims of K2 have already been laid to rest.

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