ISLAMABAD: An official reported on Thursday that three foreign climbers are presumed dead and missing on Pakistan’s perilous Karakorum mountain range in the nation’s far north.
super peaks
Five of the 14 “super peaks” in the world, or those that are over 8,000 meters (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 bodies are discovered, we cannot declare them dead.”
It had 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 tethered climbers was seen pushing up K2 in a video posted earlier this week on social media by Nepali mountaineer Mingma Gyalje.
On his Facebook and Instagram pages, he captioned the picture with the phrase “This is the scariest part.”
K2 got its moniker from the punishing 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).
Sanu Sherpa, a Nepalese, accomplished the feat for the first time last week.
While this is going on, Norwegian Kristin Harila is attempting to beat Nepali adventurer 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.
