My husband died mountain climbing, then I married his best friend
12.04.2022 - 21:33
/ nypost.com
best mountain climber in the world. He summited Everest twice, tackled K2, and, with his best buddy and climbing partner Conrad Anker, set speed records on peaks in the Himalayas and Antarctica. When he wasn’t traveling to far-flung locales as a member of the North Face climbing team, he came home to a beautiful wife, Jenni, and three adorable young sons, Max, Isaac and Sam.
Then, in October of 1999, Lowe, 40, and Anker, then 38, travelled to Tibet with the intention of climbing the 26,289-foot Shishapangma and skiing down it. As the two men and cameraman David Bridges were climbing up the peak, an avalanche struck, killing Lowe and Bridges, their bodies buried and left to the mountain. Anker somehow survived but was left wracked with guilt.
Aimless, he drove out to Bozeman, Montana, to comfort Jenni and the boys“Although we weren’t biological brothers, we were certainly both brothers of the same passion,” says Conrad, now 59, of Lowe. “I just felt so sad . .
. [I thought], ‘What could I do for Alex? What could I do to take care of him, and what would it be?’ ”But he and Jenni quickly developed feelings for each other just a few months after Lowe’s passing. On April 6, 2001, less than two years after Alex’s death, the two wed in Italy with the boys at their side.Their unusual love story is the subject of the National Geographic documentary, “Torn,” streaming on Disney+. The doc is directed by Lowe’s oldest son, Max, who was 10 at the time of his father’s death and has sometimes struggled with accepting Anker as part of the family.