The commercial mountaineering season in the Karakoram in Pakistan is over. The expedition operators have long been beating the drum for their offers for the coming fall in Nepal and Tibet. As in previous years, the eight-thousander Manaslu in western Nepal is likely to be particularly busy.
This mountain summer in Pakistan, most of the commercial teams gathered once again at the 8,611-meter-high K2. The “King of Eight-thousanders” was long considered too dangerous and challenging for commercial expeditions and was therefore reserved for the world’s best mountaineers. This has now changed radically. In summer, the second highest mountain on earth shares the same fate that has befallen the highest of all mountains, Mount Everest, in spring for many years: Full base camp, fixed ropes up to the summit, rubbish on the normal route, traffic jams at key points.
Half as many K2 summit successes as in 2023
The Pakistani authorities issued around 175 climbing permits for K2 this summer. The unsettled weather only allowed a few summit days at the end of July. The US mountain blogger Alan Arnette, who keeps track of commercial expeditions like no other, counted around 65 summit successes on K2. Last year, there were around twice as many.
The success rate of the commercial teams on Pakistan’s other eight-thousanders was also lower than in 2023 due to the bad weather. Just under 40 people reached the summit on Gasherbrum II, around 20 people on Broad Peak, around a dozen on Nanga Parbat and fewer than ten on Gasherbrum I.
Paragliding from the summit of K2
On K2, three French men and one French woman caused a sensation. They climbed up without bottled oxygen and flew back down to the valley on 28 July with paragliders. The first of the quartet to reach the summit was Benjamin Vedrines, who climbed to the highest point via the normal route in just eleven hours (!) and then took off. He was followed shortly afterwards by Jean Yves Fredriksen, known as ‘Blutch’, who climbed to the K2 shoulder alone via the Cesen route and only then turned onto the normal route. He also flew downhill with a paraglider. Finally, Liv Sansoz and Bertrand, called “Zeb Roche, made the first tandem flight from the summit of K2. Until 2002, Roche and his wife Claire had made tandem flights from all the Seven Summits, the highest peaks on the continents, including Everest.
It is possible that Vedrines, Fredriksen, Sansoz and Roche could face trouble afterwards, as the Pakistani authorities banned further paragliding flights for the season at the beginning of July following a fatal paragliding accident near the village of Askole.
Murad Sadpara’s death on Broad Peak
While the two top Japanese climbers Kazuya Hiraide and Kenro Nakajima – as reported – paid with their lives for their attempt to open a new route on the extremely steep K2 West Face in alpine style, this time there were no fatalities on the normal route via the south-east ridge. Last year, the death of Pakistani high-altitude porter Muhammad Hassan made headlines around the world. Dozens of mountaineers had climbed past the dying man.
This summer, a five-person Pakistani team recovered Hassan’s body from the area of the so-called “Bottleneck” at over 8,000 meters and brought it down to the valley. One of the team members, Murad Sadpara, died a few days later on the neighbouring Broad Peak. The 35-year-old was hit on the head by a rock on the descent.
