SKARDU: Pakistan is experiencing a bumper climbing season with close to 1, 400 foreign mountaineers bidding to scale its high peaks – including hundreds on the 6, 611m K2, the world’s second greatest.
“It is a record amount, ” Raja Nasir Ali Khan, tourism minister of Gilgit-Baltistan region, told AFP.
The country hosts five of the tour’s 14 mountains more than 8, 000m, and climbing them all is definitely the ultimate achievement associated with any mountaineer.
Karrar Haidri, secretary of the Alpine Club of Pakistan, informed AFP there were 57 expeditions planned pertaining to 23 Pakistan highs this season – along with 370 climbers developing a crack at K2, known as “the savage mountain”.
Besides being far more officially difficult to climb compared to Everest, weather conditions are notoriously fickle upon K2, which has only being scaled by 425 people given that 1954.
More than 6, 000 individuals have climbed Everest given that Edmund Hillary plus Tenzing Norgay first reached the top within 1953 – many of them multiple times.
Haidri said climbers this year include 90 women – including a minimum of two Pakistanis aiming to become the country’s first to scale K2.
Russian Oxana Morneva is leading a team at the mountain, having unsuccessful in her own attempt in 2012 when the lady was forced back again after injuring the girl knee.
“My rope was damaged by falling stones, ” she informed AFP.
She said she experienced no apprehension regarding returning.
“When we go to the hill we have to be tranquil inside, and we need to know what we are doing, inch she added.
Around 200 climbers will attempt to size the 8, 051m Broad Peak, while similar numbers will attempt Gasherbrum-I (8, 080m) and Gasherbrum-II (8, 035m).
The 36-year-old Norwegian climber, Kristin Harila, can also be aiming to reach the world’s 14 greatest mountain summits in record time.
Having already climbed seven peaks associated with over 8, 000m, Harila hopes to complement, if not beat, Nepali adventurer Nirmal Purja’s ambitious six months plus six days record.
The summer climbing season that started in early June lasts until late August.
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