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Who is Tom Ballard’s sister Kate?

2021-09-24 00:00:00.0 太阳报-英国新闻原网页

A NEW BBC documentary follows the sister of Tom Ballard travelling to Nanga Parbat where he tragically died in 2019.

So who is his sister Kate? Here’s all you need to know...

Kate Ballard climbing with her brother Tom Credit: Social Media - Refer to Source Who is Tom Ballard's sister Kate?

Kate and her brother Tom grew up in the Scottish Highlands town of Fort William - in the shadow of Ben Nevis.

They are the children of world-famous British climber Alison Hargreaves and her husband Jim Ballard.

Alison was the first woman to scale Mount Everest alone, without bottled oxygen.

In August 1995, just months after setting the record, she was killed as she returned from the top of K2, the world’s second highest mountain, at the age of 33.

Tragically, over 20 years later Tom died while attempting to climb Nanga Parbat in 2019.

Why did she make a pilgrimage to Nanga Parbat mountain?

In a new documentary Kate made a pilgrimage to her brother’s ‘last mountain.

In 1996 Kate made a similar trip with her father and brother to K2, where her mother died for a documentary called Alison’s Last Mountain.

Both her mother and brother’s bodies remain on the mountains where they perished.

Kate told The Telegraph: “Most people have either a memorial bench or a gravestone or a funeral.

“I didn’t have any of those things, so for me Nanga Parbat was Tom’s final resting place.

“His body is there [so] I just felt an urge from within to see and experience and just be in the place where he wanted to be, and understand why he had wanted to be there.”

Alison Hargreaves, from Derbyshire, with her two children Kate and Tom Credit: PA:Press Association How old was Kate Ballard when her mother Alison Hargreaves died?

Kate was just four when her mother died while Tom was six-years-old.

Their mother’s death sparked criticism, with many saying that Alison should not have taken so many risks as a mother.

Kate said: “‘Of course I wish my mum hadn’t died, but at the same time I am so proud of what she achieved.

“The way I see the universe is that, when we get to a stage of our life where something, a higher power, wants to claim us back, then whether you are crossing a road in a city or on a mountain, it is going to happen.”