K2 Summer 2022: Nanga Climbers Safely Down

The two Pakistani climbers who were thought to be stranded apparently turned out to be tired, caught by the weather, descended on their power to Nanga Parbat Camp 1, where they were “rescued” by the Pakistani military. A video showed them smiling, laughing, in good spirits, and apparently in good health, expressing their appreciation to all involved.

Unlike in Nepal and many other counties with popular mountains, in Pakistan, all helicopter flights are run under military control and require tens of thousands of dollars deposited upfront before a mission is launched. A rescue mission can cost USD$20-30,000 due to the choppers are always dispatched in pairs. I’m told that trekkers who recently went to K2 basecamp paid $19,500 for a helicopter to be flown back to Skardu as tourists, so things are changing in Pakistan. It’s unclear how today’s mission will be billed and funded. 

Fazal Ali and Shehroze Kashif summited Nanga Parbat at 8:45 am on Monday, July 4, 2022, but lost contact with Nanga’s Base Camp around 7,350m when the weather turned worse that afternoon. Their inReach GPS tracker showed their last location, but further live communications and location transmission ended with the low batteries.

After their summit and the poor weather, the pair chose to bivy overnight in the open at 7400m on July 4. Soon reports emerged that the two climbers were “stranded” or “trapped” led by Kashif’s father on social media. The cries for a rescue swept Twitter from interested and concerned parties. The morning after the bivy, the pair continued to descend to C3, where they spent the night, and then descended to Camp 1 at 4948 meters, where they were picked up (or long-lined?) by the helicopter on July 7. They are now reported to be in Gilgit.

Kasif is a popular climber in Pakistan, having summited Broad Peak at age 17 and now at age 20, got his eighth 8000er with Nanga making him on track to be the youngest to summit all 14. Ali is also a popular and well-known climbing figure. It will be interesting to see how record-keepers classify their Nanga summit as a climber who is aviation assisted from any camp above base camp after a summit usually is not credited with that summit.

Well-known Sherpa Gelje Sherpa, who is guiding the young British climber, Adriana Brownlee, left K2 to help in the helicopter search receiving global accolades for his contribution.

As to the communication issues teams are experiencing in the Northern Terrorities, speculation blames a failure in the Pakistani power grid, solar flares to nefarious acts by the military. In any event, don’t look to Facetime K2 climbers from the summit this year.

Gratitude for the safety of the climbers and safety to all as they continue their quests.

Climb On!
Alan
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