On Pakistani peaks, three foreign climbers are thought dead.
An official said on Thursday that three international climbers are presumed dead and missing on Pakistan’s perilous Karakorum mountain range in the nation’s far north.
Five of the 14 “super peaks” in the world, or those that are over 8,000 metres (26,246 feet) high, are located in Pakistan, and the climbing season is currently in full swing.
Senior government officials from the Gilgit Baltistan tourism office told AFP that British Gordon Henderson was lost while climbing Broad Peak, the world’s twelfth-highest mountain, while Australian Matthew Eakin and Canadian Richard Cartier were missing on K2, the second-highest mountain in the world.
The official stated, “Until the remains are discovered, we cannot declare them dead.”We hope to discover them alive, but the likelihood is quite low.
Henderson, a wing commander with the Royal Air Force of the United Kingdom, vanished on the 8,051-meter Broad Peak on July 19, according to the armed forces’ verified Facebook page.
Wing Commander Henderson’s family, friends, and coworkers are in our thoughts during this terrible time, the statement continued.
Since the weekend on K2, which is known as the “Savage Mountain” due to its extreme difficulty, Eakin and Cartier have been missing.
According to the Pakistan Alpine Club, records have fallen this season as more than 140 people, including 20 women, have ascended the 8,611-meter K2.
It has only been scaled 425 times up until this year, compared to Everest, which has been climbed by more than 6,000 people since Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay made the first ascent in 1953.
A line of tied climbers was seen pressing up K2 in a video posted earlier this week on social media by Nepali mountaineer Mingma Gyalje.On his Facebook and Instagram profiles, he captioned the picture with the phrase “This is the scariest part.”
K2 got its moniker from the harsh weather there; in the winter, winds can gust to more than 200 kph (125 mph), and the temperature can drop to minus 60 °C (minus 76 Fahrenheit).
After reaching the summit of Pakistan’s Gasherbrum II last week, Sanu Sherpa, a climber from Nepal, became the first person to successfully achieve the double summit of all 14 super summits.
While this is going on, Norwegian Kristin Harila is attempting to beat Nepali explorer Nirmal Purja’s record of six months and six days for climbing all 14 super peaks in the shortest amount of time.
On day 70 of her ascent, the 36-year-old woman conquered K2, the eighth peak of the challenge.