Alison Hargreaves and her son

[ssd]

Just watched the program about Alison Hargreaves and her family.

Brilliant and gut wrenching.

I watched something years ago after Alison's death where they took the children on an expidition if some sorts to visit somewhere near the mountain she had died on.

What I remember of the expedition was that Dad was not especially warm with the children, in an odd way he seemed almost impatient with them when they were tearful or tired etc, I just remember the contrast of another member of the party taking the time to sit with them. She had a book about bereavement and encouraged them to talk about Alison.

Dad was odd and distant but that could have been the editing,

I didn't know the son had died, how sad.

It's quite well known that Alison and Jim had a difficult marriage, there were allegations of abuse and climbing was Alison's way of getting enough money and sponsorship to leave Jim - this K2 trip would have secured her and her children's future through sponsorship and other opportunities that come through name recognition. That was absolutely the pressure on her to succeed on K2.

I'm sure the film was fascinating but there's a lot of info on Alison out there and the judgment I'm reading on this thread is pretty astonishing tbh

As other posters have said,she was a professional mountaineer, it wasn't just a hobby. When people watch the Olympics, nobody says skiers, sailors and ski jumpers are selfish. They don't tut about motor racers, speedway riders or boxers. I believe being a jockey is quite dangerous. Every day people join the army, become police officers, fire fighters, scaffolders, and nobody tells them to give up when they have children.

I've found it a really interesting thread - I had no idea about Jim's history of domestic abuse and the context of the K2 expedition. It is really sad.

I watched it last night and I've been thinking about it all day. I've read quite a few climbing memoirs and as I listened to Karim, one of the Pakistani climbers who was with Tom and Daniele and decided it was too dangerous and that he was leaving, I got the impression that Tom and Daniele had succumbed to 'mountain madness'.

What a sad story - both the deaths of Alison and Tom (and Daniele), such a waste. I really felt for Kate too, how broken she looked after Tom's death and how brave she was to go to Nanga Parbat. Lovely too that she asked Ibrahim to go with her.

I didn't warm at all to Jim though. His reaction to the news of Tom's (probable) death was devastating and the way he spoke to Kate. I thought he was a very odd and not very nice person and if Alison was trying to leave him, I don't blame her.

I thought it was an amazing film, but terribly sad.

@Felldownabackdonhole

It is sad to see that about the domestic abuse. I did have a bad feeling about him. How sad for Tom and Kate.

Has anyone seen the film Sherpa? It’s on Netflix and is about the lives of Sherpa and a disaster on Everest where many of them were killed. There is so much exploitation of Sherpas and they do so much of the work and take a disproportionate amount of the risk but don’t get any of the credit they are due.

Sherpa is a great documentary. Incredibly sad but also complex for the Sherpas.

@Alicetheowl

As other posters have said,she was a professional mountaineer, it wasn't just a hobby. When people watch the Olympics, nobody says skiers, sailors and ski jumpers are selfish. They don't tut about motor racers, speedway riders or boxers. I believe being a jockey is quite dangerous. Every day people join the army, become police officers, fire fighters, scaffolders, and nobody tells them to give up when they have children.

Yes I agree with this.

I think the word 'selfish' is overused, and in a very controlling way. As if the ideal world is one where everyone has identical mundane lives.

I think the difficulty with the idea of mountain climbing being a profession is the justification of risk. There are plenty of dangerous jobs: army, police, fire fighting etc, but these are all seen as providing a service for the good of humanity. Sports based risk seems more about personal gain rather than societal gain. I think that’s what shifts people’s perceptions of acceptable risk to the family.

@IHateCoronavirus

I think the difficulty with the idea of mountain climbing being a profession is the justification of risk. There are plenty of dangerous jobs: army, police, fire fighting etc, but these are all seen as providing a service for the good of humanity. Sports based risk seems more about personal gain rather than societal gain. I think that’s what shifts people’s perceptions of acceptable risk to the family.

This is discussed in the context of mountaineering, very well, in the book “Unjustifiable Risk?” Unfistifiable Risk? about the history, ethics etc of British mountaineering.

Oh, that book looks interesting. I've started reading the biography of Alison that someone mentioned upthread - it is fascinating, and is putting the documentary in a very different light.

I think as professional climbers they are constantly assessing risk. However human factors will obviously intrude. I think the very sad thing about Tom was that he was so young. The older, Pakistani climber pulled out of the climb as he assessed the risk as being too high. Greater life experience and wisdom? Also not afraid to speak up and say he wanted to turn back and stick to that position when Daniele seemed to try to persuade him otherwise?

Agree with @lannistunut people do have a surprisingly narrow view of what constitutes a real job. DH very often is greeted with surprise when he tells people what he does for a living and gets the response that they had no idea you could do that as a job - sometimes with a sceptical eye roll for good measure.

Where was this program please, I would love to watch it! HRTFT, sorry if it's been covered. I followed Tom's the rescue mission and was so heartbroken for his family :(

@BikeRunSki

Found it, The Last Mountain, BBC2 last night

Found it!! :)

@BikeRunSki

Julie Tullis was a professional climber/mountaineer and mother, a generation older than Alison Hargreaves. She explores the ethics of mothers of young children continuing in the sport/lifestyle in her autobiography “Clouds on Both Sides” (it is worth reading, if only for the last chapter). In the cases of both Alison and Julie, they had the support and understanding of their partners.

Support and understanding?

There is a fair bit of evidence (accounts from Alison's friends as well as her diaries) that the relationship with Jim Ballard was abusive - both physically and emotionally. There is also a fair bit of evidence that the reason she was so driven to climb K2 at that time was because she thought that the attention it would generate would give her financial independence so she could leave him. They met when she worked for him as a 16 year old and he was pretty much twice her age - it wasn't a relationship of equals.

I haven't seen the film yet, and am planning to do so as soon as I can. I understand that it doesn't mention the evidence of abuse at all, so I'll be interested to see how it portrays her husband.

In terms of support and understanding - I think the previous poster perhaps means that they supported their partners in their mountaineering in as much as they weren't opposed to them doing it.

Jim Ballard was very keen that Alison pursue a professional career and encouraged her ambition - what his motivation for that was is perhaps more questionable!

What a sad slant to the story. Jim struck me as very cold especially when he learnt of Tom's death, very detached. Poor Alison and poor poor Kate

@Pebble21uk

In terms of support and understanding - I think the previous poster perhaps means that they supported their partners in their mountaineering in as much as they weren't opposed to them doing it.

Jim Ballard was very keen that Alison pursue a professional career and encouraged her ambition - what his motivation for that was is perhaps more questionable!

More than just not opposing it, I think Jim was very keen to push his wife's career. IMO, there was an element of living vicariously through her. Her fame put him at the centre of a community where he could hold court.

I'll be interested to see how it portrays her husband.

There is no mention of the alleged abuse/evidence in her diaries/talk of unhappiness in her marriage - absolutely nothing - but Jim Ballard comes across as a cold, distant, unemotional and unpleasant individual. I knew nothing of the allegations against him and yet my instinct told me that something that wrong from what was shown of him in the documentary, so IMO the filmmaker did his job in allowing the subject to show his true colours.

I really dislike the criticism that Alison Hargreaves came in for and calling her out as selfish. Just three months before she died on K2, she was celebrated as the first British woman to climb Everest without supplemental oxygen. There didn't seem to be any criticism of her then, just after she died. So if you're a woman and a mother in a dangerous profession, FGS don't die or you'll be vilified

I also watched it last night and found Jim’s coldness a bit hard to take although we’ve recently had a bereavement of someone too young in our family so I’m possibly oversensitive to death at the moment!

In the last few years as I’ve got more involved in hillwalking and climbing (came to it late) I have noticed that it attracts it’s obsessive, the same as any other sport. I climb at Stockport once a week, but there are a good many people who climb there four or five days a week. The sport is very welcoming in some ways but there can be snobbishness between sport and trad, and lots of debate about the line between hill walking and mountaineering. The forums on the UKC website can be a bear pit - ask an innocent question as a newbie and people will pile in to pour scorn on you for asking a stupid question rather than offer advice - this tends to come from the lifers.

I have been up in the hills a few times with a guy who’s been on the BMC board who knew both Alison and Julie, and had nothing but praise for them both. He said Alison was both a wonderful mother and wonderful mountaineer. Didn’t have anything positive to say about JB though and confirmed that the relationship was abusive at times.

In the last few years as I’ve got more involved in hillwalking and climbing (came to it late) I have noticed that it attracts it’s obsessive, the same as any other sport. I climb at Stockport once a week, but there are a good many people who climb there four or five days a week. The sport is very welcoming in some ways but there can be snobbishness between sport and trad, and lots of debate about the line between hill walking and mountaineering. The forums on the UKC website can be a bear pit - ask an innocent question as a newbie and people will pile in to pour scorn on you for asking a stupid question rather than offer advice - this tends to come from the lifers.

This is all true, there's a huge amount of snobbery, and a lot of men wanting to act like a big deal and attract admiration/hold court. Thankfully the whole climbing community isn't like that though.

UKC is indeed a total bear pit. Lots of wily waving, lots of open misogyny. I dont post there often! I'm probably a 'lifer', but I hate the superiority posters display on there.

(Btw: if you climb trad, I'd check out the Pinnacle Club - by far the nicest group around . Stockport isn't that far from the club hut and a lot of the meets.)

Thanks @BeenAsFarAsMercyAndGrand - will check that out. Fairly new to climbing - only started learning after advice from a friend when I was bottling it on some of the Wainwrights scrambles - and found I really enjoyed it.

Re misogynists - my rule of thumb is to avoid any men wearing either very short shorts or a pair of Ron Hills - tends to weed them out very easily!!

@BeenAsFarAsMercyAndGrand Absolutely - I agree, that was my second point... his motivation for that support is very questionable.

He was an average hobbyist hill climber with a climbing shop in Derbyshire... he certainly wanted more status and Alison and latterly Tom were his route to that. I said upthread that I feel his vicarious ambition moved to Tom after Alison's death. How many other fathers would move their teenage son to the Alps and then the Dolomites to live out of a van so they could do nothing but climb? He had huge ambition for them but I don't think it was altruistic ambition at all.

Agree , it was an amazing but sad film. I think climbers definitely have a different mindset than most.
I've also seen Sherpa which was very thought provoking.

For more uplifting climbing docs there is one called Dawn Wall, on Netflix I think and about a couple of American climbers, and Climbing Blind about a climber who was almost blind.