52 The Times Magazinen September 1999, a pair of American
climbers travelled to Mount
Shishapangma, in the Himalayas.
Their names were Alex Lowe and
Conrad Anker, and they were
experienced professionals. Lowe,
in particular, was a celebrity
within the world of climbing and
mountaineering. Despite his mild,
almost professorial appearance, the
40-year-old had developed a rock-star
reputation for his daring and virtuosity,
and was known within the profession as
“the Mutant” or “Lungs with Legs” on account
of his remarkable strength and stamina.
Anker, though a gifted climber himself, had
spent most of his career in the shadow of his
best friend. But there was no resentment. The
two men loved each other and they loved
climbing together. “We had a connection,”
says Anker. “The gift of friendship is rare. So
when you have it, you support each other.”
The plan of the Shishapangma expedition
was simple but audacious. Lowe and Anker
would climb to the 8,000m (26,200ft) summit
before skiing down the southwest face in a
smooth, seemingly endless run that would
be captured by an NBC camera crew.
On October 5, Lowe, Anker and a
cameraman named David Bridges left base
camp and set off on an exploratory trek,
scouting for a route up the peak. The three
men were crossing a glacier when a serac – a
huge column of ice – collapsed approximately
1,800m above them. As it tumbled downhill,
it caused an avalanche. The three men
on the glacier had no time to escape the
150m wide wall of snow and ice that was
suddenly cascading towards them.
“We looked up and we saw that an
avalanche had triggered,” remembers Anker.
It bore down on the exposed men at hideous
speed. For Anker, it seemed oblivion was the
only possible outcome. “I thought, ‘I’m going
to die today. Death is happening.’ ”
Instead, a shock wave preceding the
avalanche hurled Anker 30m through the air.
And though he was left buried under snow
and ice and had suffered head wounds, broken
ribs and a dislocated shoulder, he managed to
dig himself free.
But when he resurfaced, he was alone
on a silent mountainside. Lowe and Bridges?
They were gone. Not a trace of either man
remained. Anker would lead a desperate
search for them, but they couldn’t be found.
It was as though they had been erased by the
sheer physics of what had happened.
It was Anker who telephoned Lowe’s wife,
Jenni, to break the news. She in turn did her
best to explain to her three young sons – Max,
Samuel and Isaac – that their father was gone.
In the weeks that followed, Anker was haunted
by feelings of shame and worthlessness, feelingshe would later learn were caused by the
psychological phenomenon of survivor’s guilt.
“Like it should have been me instead of Alex,”
he says. “Because he had a young family.
Because his life was worth more than mine.”
This, combined with the PTSD he suffered
following the avalanche, left him feeling
suicidal. The only thing that gave him
any sense of purpose was a promise he had
made to Jenni that he would do whatever
he could to support her and her boys. And
so in December 1999, he drove from his home
in California to Montana to spend Christmas
with the Lowes. He accompanied them on
a trip to Disneyland. He became a regular
presence, a steady, phlegmatic figure for a
family who were grieving and disorientated.
And then one day, Max walked into a room
to find his mother and Anker were kissing.
Within three months of the avalanche, the
two of them had begun to fall in love. Within
a year, Anker had moved into the Lowe
family home. Within two years, they were
married. While Anker admits that the
“optics” of their relationship and the speed
at which it unfolded caused some peopleto rush to judgment, their own families and
the mountaineering community in general
were entirely supportive.
“People have their views one way or
another,” he says slowly. “But our love was
forged under duress and loss, and we were
both in the grieving process.” It was a love,
he continues, “that just happened”.
Anker raised Lowe’s sons as though they
were his own. He was a hands-on and loving
figure, adventurous but dependable. Yet he was
surrounded by constant reminders of the man
he replaced. Lowe’s climbing gear was still in
the house. His car was still in the driveway.
Anker was living, more than ever, in his best
friend’s shadow. “There was always that feeling
of being an imposter,” he says. Both he and
Jenni would wake from vivid dreams in
which Lowe had returned to his home, angrily
demanding to know what was going on.
Over the next 15 years, the three boys grew
into young men and their memories of their
biological father grew ever more hazy and
dreamlike. To Max, the eldest, he was like an
“astronaut lost in space”, but to Samuel and
Isaac, Anker was “Dad” while Lowe was thisI
‘IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME, NOT ALEX.
HIS LIFE WAS WORTH MORE THAN MINE’
Alex Lowe (left) and
Conrad Anker on the
peak of Mount Evans
in AntarcticaPREVIOUS SPREAD: GORDON WILTSIE, MICHAEL GRABER, JENNIFER LOWE-ANKER, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC/MAX LOWE, KIM GAYLORD. THIS SPREAD: GORDON WILTSIE, COURTESY OF MAX LOWE, AMERICAN ADVENTURE PRODUCTIONS