Climbers bid farewell to Park

By Kim Rahn

Families and hundreds of climbers bade a tearful farewell to one of the world’s greatest climbers, Park Young-seok, and his two other fellow mountaineers at a memorial service Thursday.

The service for the three ― Park, Shin Dong-min and Kang Ki-seok ― took place at Seoul National University Hospital in central Seoul at 10 a.m.

Almost all of the country’s climbing-related organizations participated in the service in what is believed to be the largest-scale memorial for climbers.

The service was held without their bodies, which are believed to be buried under deep snow on Annapurna in the Himalayas, where they went missing on Oct. 18 after losing contact with their base camp.

As a video clip showed the three climbing at the beginning of the service, the venue was filled with the sobbing of mourners comprised of bereaved families and members of various climbing clubs and organizations.

In the footage taken at the base camp just before his last climb, Park said, “I appreciate being alive, as I’ve lost so many colleagues while climbing together. But I think mountaineers are mountaineers when they mountaineer, and explorers are explorers when they explore. A mountaineer in the city is not a mountaineer, he or she is a tiger that has lost their instinct. I’ll keep exploring until my dying day, always appreciating everything.”

Lee In-jung, head of the Korean Alpine Federation (KAF), said in an address, “It is regrettable that we can no longer see the three people who didn’t give up when there was a 1 percent chance of success. But his spirit, which showed that there is no land on Earth where human beings can’t go, will remain alive in our hearts.”

He also pledged full assistance for the Park Young-seok Exploration and Culture Foundation’s youth support projects, carrying on Park’s cherished plan to train and educate young mountaineers.

Lawmaker Kang Seok-ho, who is the head of the KAF rescue association, said, “They showed great devotion and passion, not submitting to hardship. They became mountains themselves.”

On Wednesday, the government conferred decorations on Kang and Shin. According to the federation, the two had already secured enough merits to get the decorations before this ascent. Park was earlier awarded the Cheongnyeong (blue dragon) Order in 2003, the highest recognition in sports, for his achievements including scaling 14 of the highest peaks in the Himalayas.

Park and his companions were trying a new route on the south face of the 8,091-meter-high Annapurna when they went missing on Oct. 18 after a last call to base camp that they were descending down to an advance camp because weather conditions were bad and rocks were falling.

Rescue teams comprised of climbers dispatched from Korea and Sherpas in Nepal conducted a search and rescue operation for 10 days, but failed to find them.