Tragic climber Gerard McDonnell (37) kept a pet mouse, played chess and sang Ramones songs as he waited to tackle the summit of K2, the world's second-highest peak.

The Limerick man revealed in a diary how he passed his time waiting for five weeks to tackle the peak of the mountain on the Pakistan/China border.

Mr McDonnell was one of 11 people to die following an ice avalanche on Saturday morning on his descent of the summit after becoming the first Irish person to scale the 8,611 metre K2 the day before.

In his diary, Mr McDonnell wrote on June 18 about how they were waiting for more rope and better weather to begin the ascent of the mountain peak.

"In the meantime we're fighting off the boredom by playing chess, reading, sowing, repairing stuff, chatting with the new neighbours and such like. For the most part then we retire in the early evening to the solitary confines of our tents for some lonely-ownsome time.

On June 24 the camp were serenading the camp mouse Shena, who was pregnant.

"Looks like she's lost an amount of weight equivalent to a half-dozen micelets and I suppose in the not too distance future we can expect some offspring to be frequenting the dining area," he wrote.

"Some of us have taken to serenading her with The Ramone's Sheena Is A Punk Rocker, although she seems indifferent to our efforts."

On July 1, the climber described how he suffered from altitude sickness.

"Personally I found myself decorating the snow intermittently from Camp Two to Three with ungodly amounts of rejected breakfast (more than I remembered consuming)."

On July 10, Mr McDonnell thanked his family for post he had received at basecamp.

"And, by the way, thanks to all who sent mail to basecamp. Thanks mother, got the holy water (and the sweets). The summit couldn't have been a success without it."

On July 16 the weather was still bad and more teams from Korea, Serbia and Italy were gathering. A week later on July 23 it looked like they were going to start the final climb. Two days later the decision was finally made to tackle the summit.

"The meeting had a humorous tone. Spirits were high. Hopes are high. It was joked that the next meeting would take place at Camp Four ... Let luck and good fortune prevail. Fingers crossed," he wrote on July 25.

The expedition leader for Mr McDonnell's group has spoken from his hospital bed in the Pakistani town of Skardu about why he believes three people from their group lost their lives.

Dutch climber Wilco Van Rooijen said: "Everything was going well to Camp Four, and on summit attempt, everything went wrong.

"Everybody has his own responsibility and then some people did not do what they promised," said Mr Van Rooijen, who claimed that one team had only brought half of the rope that they were supposed to. "With such stupid things, lives are endangered."