Climbers’ bodies found
THE bodies of three mountaineers who died during a winter expedition on Pakistan’s K2 have been found months after they went missing while scaling the world’s second-highest peak, officials said on Tuesday (27).
The remains of Pakistani mountaineering legend Muhammad Ali Sadpara, Iceland’s John Snorri and Juan Pablo Mohr from Chile were spotted Monday near “the bottleneck” – a narrow gully just hundreds of metres from the summit.
“We are now focusing on a strategy to bring the bodies to a point from where they could be airlifted,” Ayaz Shagri, an official with the Alpine Club of Pakistan, said. “The bodies of the mountaineers are intact and frozen,” Shagri added, saying the climbers’ remains were at an altitude of 7,800 metres (25,600 feet).
“It is very difficult to bring the dead bodies down from this high altitude,” said Karrar Haidri, also from the Alpine Club, adding that the military was helping with the operation.
The trio lost contact with K2’s base camp in early February, sparking a massive rescue effort that included military helicopters and planes.
Sadpara’s son Sajid is in the team coordinating the recovery effort, Shagri added.
The discovery of the bodies followed the death last Sunday (25) of Scottish climber Rick Allen, who was killed after being hit by an avalanche.
Also on Tuesday, a 19-yearold Pakistani became the youngest person to summit K2, the Alpine Club of Pakistan said.
Shehroze Kashif reached the 28,251-foot summit at 8:10 a.m. on Tuesday. Kashif, who began climbing in his early teens, scaled the world’s 12th highest mountain, 26,400-foot Broad Peak, at the age of 17.
In May, he became the youngest Pakistani to scale Mount Everest, the world’s highest mountain. He now holds an additional record as the youngest person to have summitted K2 and Everest.
On Monday (26), Samina Baig, 30, said she was abandoning an attempt to summit the mountain because of dangerous conditions. Baig became the youngest Pakistani woman to scale Mount Everest in 2013.
Known as “the savage mountain”, K2 has harsh conditions .