Pakistan ? Blinded by the glare off the snow and ice, attempting a perilous descent down K2 to save his life, the Dutch mountaineer came upon three Korean climbers.

One sat dazed in the snow. Another held a rope. The third was suspended at the other end, hanging upside down.

“They were trying to survive,” the Dutch mountaineer, Wilco van Rooijen, recalled Monday, “but I had also to survive because I was getting snow blind.” He said he offered help but they declined, believing help was already on the way.

Speaking by phone with The Associated Press from a military hospital where he was being treated for frostbitten toes, van Rooijen provided a gripping account of his ordeal on K2 before he and another Dutch climber were plucked to safety Monday.

At least 11 people were presumed dead after an avalanche on K2, the world’s second-highest mountain. An Italian who was also stranded made his way down the slope with a rescue team after telling a colleague, “I am surely not going to give up now.”