Briton’s body found on ‘Killer Mountain’
THE body of climber Tom Ballard, who went missing on Pakistan’s notorious ‘ Killer Mountain’, has been found – 24 years after his mother died on the neighbouring Himalayan peak of K2.
The 13- day search for the 30-year-old Briton and his Italian climbing partner Daniele Nardi, 42, ended after a rescue team confirmed that silhouettes spotted at over 19,000ft on Nanga Parbat were the bodies of the two climbers.
Stefano Pontecorvo, Italy’s ambassador to Pakistan, said a Spanish climber discovered the bodies on the Mummery Spur trail, a treacherously rocky route up the western face of the world’s ninth-high- est mountain. Mr Ballard, originally from Belper in Derbyshire, is t he son of Alison Hargreaves, who died descending from the summit of K2 in 1995 – the same year she became the first woman to conquer Everest unaided.
His 72-year-old father Jim, in an interview given while awaiting news of his son, spoke of his anguish at the prospect of another family tragedy.
He said: ‘To have this happen the second time is almost more than I can handle. It really is.’
But Mr Ballard, whose daughter Kate, 28, works as an adventure guide i n South Africa, also paid tribute to his gifted son.
‘If he has perished, he did so living his life to the full and I have to use that to make sense of all this,’ he said.
The two climbers had last made contact with their team at base camp on February 24 as they tried to reach the 26,600ft summit of Nanga Parbat, which has now claimed more than 80 lives since 1895.
Mr Pontecorvo s ai d t he bodies were in a place that was difficult to reach, but everything possible would be done to try to recover them.
Writing on Facebook, Mr Ballard’s girlfriend, Stefania Pederiva, said her heart was ‘completely drowned’, adding: ‘ There are or will never be words suitable to describe the void you left. I thank the universe for giving me such a special person. There are only the wonderful memories of the times spent together that are the most beautiful of my life.’