Body of American mountain climber found in SW China

Source: Reuters

BEIJING, June 8 (Reuters) - The body of an American mountain climber has been found in southwest China, while a search continues for two other climbers who disappeared last month while trying to scale Mount Edgar.

The body of Jonathan Copp, 35, was found on an ice sheet about 4,000 meters above sea level, the China Daily said. The summit of Mount Edgar, or Mount Gongga in Chinese, is 6,400 meters above sea level in Luding County, Sichuan Province.

The head of China's national climbing team was helping in the search for Wade Johnson and Micah Dash, who with Copp were scheduled to have returned from their climb about May 28. Friends reported them missing to the U.S. consulate in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, on June 4.

Copp was one of the founders of the Adventure Film Festival, which has appealed for help in the search on its website, www.adventurefilm.org.


Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSPEK37322

These guys are INCREDIBLY respected in the climbing community, not just for their skill but for being incredibly good people. Wade and Micah are considered among the best and the brightest out there. To give you an idea of how much they mean to the elite climbing world, here's an open letter from climbing filmmaker Peter Mortimer describing some of the efforts to find them (http://senderfilms.com):


Dear friends,

As you all know by now, Jonny Copp, Micah Dash and Wade Johnson are missing on Mt Edgar in China and we are working on a multi-pronged search and rescue operation. The support for this operation has been unbelievable, and I can’t thank those of you enough who have contributed by offering connections, resources, emotional support and, most importantly, financial support.

These three guys have given so much to the climbing community in so many ways: their dedication to pushing the barriers of the sport on rock and in alpine terrain; their extensive community outreach through slide presentations and film festivals; their work with clothing and gear companies in designing and promoting cutting-edge equipment; and their dedication to capturing the most inspiring photos and footage from the most extreme places on earth.

Their lives have been dedicated to one thing: a celebration of climbing. And when you give as much to the climbing community as they have, I now see that the community gives back. In spades.

I wanted to share with you a few small examples of gestures performed in the last day alone:

• At midnight last night, a notoriously impoverished local climber – and good friend of the team – showed up at search headquarters, threw his passport on the table and said that for the first time in his life he has two thousand dollars to his name, and he wants to spend it on a flight to Chengdu to be one of the first Americans on the ground to help out with the search.

• This morning at 9 AM, a guiding client of Micah’s wired $25,000 to search headquarters to make sure the search did not slow down due to a financial bog-down.

• Companies who compete with the sponsors of these athletes are paying for their own athletes with Chinese visas to get to get to China as quickly as possible.

• People have offered up the 65,000 frequent flyer miles needed on United to get to China.

• Senators have pressured the Chinese embassy to expedite visas for American search volunteers.

The list goes on.

This is an expensive operation that will cost well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. But there is every reason to believe that these guys are alive and trapped only a few hours from base camp. While there is hope, there is life. We need to do all we can to get people on the ground quickly, to get a helicopter in the air, and to keep communication flowing.

If these guys ever gave anything to your life, or ever inspired you in any way, now would be the time to give them something back.

As climbers, we are one big family and it is amazing to see how we look out for each other.

TO DONATE PLEASE GO TO: http://www.adventurefilm.org/blogs/adventure_blog.aspx

Kindest regards,
Pete Mortimer
Boulder, CO
June 5, 2009

This is a big loss for us. A big loss. :cry:

-- sad leftyclimber

:cry:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j9XeNbDfzG_-BTaVgvW1u7avC7dAD98MER7O0

Body of second US climber found in China
2 hours ago

BEIJING (AP) — Rescuers struggling through high winds and blizzards recovered the body of a second American climber Monday after an avalanche buried a team of three U.S. mountaineers in southwestern China last week, an official said.

One of the Americans was still missing

The body of photographer Wade Johnson, 24, of Arden Hills, Minnesota, was uncovered Monday morning by a team of Chinese rescuers.

The rescue team had been scouring Mount Gongga in Sichuan province for the two missing U.S. mountain climbers after the body of Jonathan "Jonny" Copp of Boulder, Colorado, was found Saturday.

Three search teams are now on the mountain but are facing rough conditions, said Gao Min, a spokesman for the Sichuan Mountaineering Association.

"Our search team has encountered extremely challenging conditions today with the intense winds, potential for avalanches and heavy snowfall," Gao said.

Johnson was working for Boulder-based Sender Films, which makes climbing and outdoor adventure films.

The deaths of Copp, 35, and Johnson were the first on Mount Gongga since 2001, Gao said.

Micah Dash, 32, also of Boulder, remains missing. The three men were last heard from on May 20 at the base camp of Mount Edgar, a Mount Gongga peak.

Gongga, Tibetan for "highest snowcapped mountain," attracts both tourists and mountaineers. It is