Laura Dahlmeier’s death: This is how mountaineer Thomas Huber experienced the accident

The death of 31-year-old extreme climber Laura Dahlmeier shocked the entire country in the summer. The two-time biathlon Olympic champion and seven-time world champion was hiking with a partner at Laila Peak in Pakistan’s Karakoram Mountains when a rockfall hit her at an altitude of 5,700 meters – and killed her.

Her friend and climbing companion Thomas Huber, one of the most experienced and well-known mountaineers in Germany, was one of the first on site at the time. The 58-year-old has seen a lot in his career and has crashed several times himself. In an interview with the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” (SZ), he remembers the dramatic hours and weeks after his girlfriend’s fall.

On July 28th, Huber himself was on an expedition in Pakistan and at 10 a.m. he received the bad news. At first it was said that his girlfriend was seriously injured.

The fact that he had already been on the road with Dahlmeier a few times, in France and in Berchtesgaden, Bavaria, didn’t play a role. There is an “unwritten law” in the scene […]”that you help others when they are in trouble, regardless of whether you know them or not,” he tells the SZ. It was immediately clear that he would do everything in his power to save Dahlmeier – in vain, as it soon turned out. After they flew around the scene of the accident a few times in the helicopter, “we realized pretty quickly that any help was too late for Laura,” says Huber.

Dahlmeier had previously ordered that her body should not be recovered in such a case if it would endanger the life of searchers. When the weather conditions were more favorable a few weeks later, Huber traveled to Laila Peak again at the request of Dahlmeier’s parents. This time too without success – “and so Laura will probably find her final rest on the mountain forever,” says Huber to the SZ.

Back in his base camp, he was finally able to mourn and finally cry, the 58-year-old remembers. “I needed the silence,” he says.

Huber explains that Dahlmeier’s death caused so much sympathy at home because she was “an incredibly likeable person with a lot of heart” who took the whole country along with her with a smile.

Huber can understand the subsequent debate about the usefulness of such a dangerous extreme sport like mountaineering. It is difficult to explain this venture to a layperson. “For me it’s life-affirming. Because it’s the most honest world I know. Unlike here in civilization, where everything is full of vanities, envy, resentment and intrigue,” Huber tells the newspaper.

He himself has narrowly escaped death several times. It was particularly close in 2016 when he fell twelve meters on the Brendlberg near Berchtesgaden. There were also dangerous situations in Pakistan this summer. Nevertheless, he never gave a thought to giving up mountaineering. On the contrary: he became more relaxed. Death is just “a capricious fellow”. For him there is no question that he will carry on – “also for the sake of his deceased friends.”

Sources: “”, DPA