Cory Richards: Gasherbrum II Avalanche Survivor and Adventure Photographer

The frost-covered face in this portrait belongs to Cory Richards, the American climber and photographer who survived an avalanche on Gasherbrum II during the first winter ascent of the peak, then turned his camera on himself while he was still shaking. In the short film A Tribute to Discomfort, made by Blue Chalk, Richards talks about the life behind those pictures, from a troubled youth that included a period of homelessness as a teenager to becoming one of National Geographic's Adventurers of the Year.

Who is Cory Richards?

Richards was born in May 1981 and grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah. His father, Court, had him climbing by the age of five. Before Gasherbrum, he had already built a serious Himalayan record:

• 2009: a new route on the north face of Kwangde Shar with Ines Papert, and an attempt on Makalu with Steve House.
• 2010: the first ascent of the Central South Buttress of Tawoche with Renan Öztürk, and his first 8,000-metre summit, Lhotse.

Gasherbrum II and the avalanche, February 2011

On 2 February 2011, Richards stood on the summit of Gasherbrum II in Pakistan with the Italian Simone Moro and the Kazakh Denis Urubko. It was the first winter ascent of the mountain, made without supplemental oxygen or porters, and it made Richards the first American to climb an 8,000-metre peak in winter. The team used a two-day weather window and faced hurricane-force winds, temperatures near −50°F and unstable snow.

On the way down, a Class 4 avalanche swept all three men away. All were partly buried. Moro dug himself free and pulled his partners out within minutes, and the three made it back to base camp without major injuries. Richards had a small HD camera, and he filmed himself breaking down moments after the slide. "Once the avalanche took us, there was no more fear," he said later. He called his partners "my family... my brothers."

His footage became the film Cold, which won the Grand Prize at the 2011 Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival. National Geographic named Richards one of its Adventurers of the Year for 2012.

A Tribute to Discomfort

The Blue Chalk film is a short portrait of Richards in his own words. He speaks about his difficult early life and about what climbing and photography have meant to him, and the film's title sums up his view that hardship and discomfort are part of the work. It is a quiet, personal counterpoint to the dramatic expedition pictures.

Everest, photography and later work

Richards attempted Everest with Conrad Anker in 2012 without success, then reached the summit in 2016 without bottled oxygen. He was a National Geographic Photographer Fellow in 2014 and 2019, and his photographs have appeared in National Geographic, Outside and The New York Times. After an unsuccessful attempt on Dhaulagiri in 2021, he said in 2022 that he was leaving climbing behind, at least for a time. In 2024 he published The Color of Everything, a book about his life.

Avalanches like the one on Gasherbrum II are the biggest danger in the high mountains. Go into avalanche terrain trained and equipped: our Avalanche Preparation guide covers the basics. For another survival story caught on camera, read John All’s crevasse account, and for more mountain imagery see Erez Marom’s landscape photography.

Related reading

• Avalanche Preparation: Training, Terrain, Equipment and Group Decisions
• Iain Stewart’s Avalanche Documentary: Stories and Snow Science
• Aymar Navarro’s Avalanche Incident in the Spanish Pyrenees
• East Vail Avalanche Rescue: The December 22, 2013 Footage

Sources