Families Say British Climbers Missing in Tajikistan Probably Dead

Two British mountaineers who disappeared on an expedition nearly a month ago are unlikely to be found alive, according to their families.

Simon Spencer-Jones from Ruisaurie Beauly, Inverness-shire, and Ian Hatcher, who is thought to be from Bristol, had been exploring the remote Pamirs region of the former Soviet republic of Tajikistan when they went missing.

They were last seen on July 13 as they set off to scale two mountains in the country which borders China and Afghanistan, but failed to rejoin a party of climbers five days later.

It is thought the two were caught in a ferocious blizzard which saw 3ft of snow fall in 48 hours. Searches by helicopter and land have failed to locate the men.

Families of the experienced mountaineers said they had accepted that there was little chance of them being found alive.

Roland Spencer-Jones, whose son had just graduated in medicine from Bristol University, posted a message to his friends on the university mountaineering club's website. It explained the details of the trip and said: "They should have been back five days later. There have been some helicopter searches of the area where they went missing, and the land searches are ongoing. However, there is little hope that they will be found alive.

"Those of us closest to them are in various stages of accepting the inevitability of their having come to grief somewhere up there."

Juanita and Peter Hatcher, who are in the Canadian Rockies, also released a statement on the website thanking the mountaineer's friends for their support. "As you can imagine, we are desperately sad," they said.

The climbers, both aged 26, were former members of the University of Bristol Mountaineering Club and part of an eight-strong party that had set off to Tajikistan on June 15 to explore the region over five weeks.

The pair split from the group to climb the 6,974-metre Revolution Peak on the Fedchencko glacier. But soon after they set off the weather changed dramatically. The rest of the group, who are all thought to be former members of the Bristol club, waited for their friends at base camp, but they never arrived.

Two helicopter searches and several land hunts have failed to find any trace of the missing pair, who were due to arrive back in the UK on July 31.

Bill Ruthven, honorary secretary of the Everest Mountaineering Foundation which had contributed towards the cost of the expedition, said the weather was most likely the biggest factor in costing the men their lives.

He said the group had interviewed the men and was impressed with their previous experience and planning. He did not think a lack of experience played any part in their deaths.

"They were going to be away for two or three days but then this weather block drifted in and several feet of snow came down. They didn't have a hope in hell," he said.

The university club's treasurer, James Burrows, who did not go on the expedition, said the deaths had come as a great shock to the tight-knit climbing community.

"Simon was very experienced. He helped with the running of the club and was a very good friend. Everyone who is a mountaineer knows the risks but it's hard to understand how someone so experienced could have been caught like that." The expedition, which cost an estimated £13,000, was not organised by the university club.