Karakoram Archive - Adventure Mountain

8. February 20268. February 2026

Mourning for Pakistani mountaineer Shah Doulat

He was part of the up-and-coming young generation of Pakistani mountaineers. “In the high mountains, making the right decision is crucial, but even more important is believing in yourself,” wrote Shah Doulat in summer 2024, after he had successfully led an expedition to an eight-thousander for the first time as the main person in charge on Gasherbrum II. On Friday, Shah fell to his death.

According to the Pakistani newspaper “The Dawn,” the 29-year-old mountain guide was ice climbing with a foreign client near the village of Khyber in the Hunza Valley. Doulat slipped on the ice and fell 400 meters, the report said. Locals were only able to recover his body. The mountaineer was just 29 years old.

2. December 20252. December 2025

Pakistan’s mountain guides establish their own association

Sirbaz Khan at the founding congress of the KMGA in Skardu — Sirbaz Khan (center) is the first president of the KMGA

This is another important step on the long-overdue path to emancipation for Pakistani mountaineers.

Last weekend, in a hotel in the city of Skardu in northern Pakistan, they launched the Karakoram Mountain Guides Association (KMGA), which they proudly announced afterwards as “the first national body created by mountaineers, for mountaineers.”

The more than 100 participants at the founding congress elected Sirbaz Khan to head the new mountain guide association. In early October 2024, he became the first Pakistani to complete his collection of all 14 eight-thousanders. In May 2025, Sirbaz also became the first Pakistani mountaineer to stand on the 14 highest mountains in the world without bottled oxygen.

14. November 202514. November 2025

Alpinistic highlight by James Price and George Ponsonby in the Karakoram: “Each pitch a question mark”

James Price (left) and George Ponsonby (right) on the summit of Aikache Chhok — James Price (l.) and George Ponsonby (r.) on the summit of Aikache Chhok

The members of the “Young Alpinist Group” from Great Britain and Ireland are actually only supposed to gain initial experience in the world’s great mountains. However, two of them have now achieved a real mountaineering coup in northern Pakistan.

At the end of October, Briton James Price and Irishman George Ponsonby opened a difficult 3,000-meter route in alpine style on the 6,673-meter-high Aikache Chhok via the previously unclimbed Northwest Ridge and then descended via the also virgin Southwest Face.

17. October 202517. October 2025

Andreas Dahlmeier: “Laura remains on the mountain”

Laura Dahlmeier while climbing — Laura Dahlmeier (1993-2025)

“We would have liked to bring Laura home. But it wasn’t possible to get her,” Andreas Dahlmeier, father of former world-class biathlete and mountaineer Laura Dahlmeier, who died in an accident on the six-thousander Laila Peak in Pakistan at the end of July, told the German magazine “Der Spiegel”.

“It was too dangerous after the accident. When Thomas went back to Laila Peak, she was nowhere to be found. So Laura remains on the mountain. There is no chance of recovering her.” Andreas Dahlmeier gave the interview together with German top climber Thomas Huber – in the hope that peace will finally return.

Now “all doors to speculation are closed,” Thomas hopes on Instagram. As if losing their child or sister wasn’t bad enough, the Dahlmeier family was confronted with unspeakable discussions and disrespectful comments on (un)social media after Laura’s fatal accident.

14. August 202514. August 2025

K2: “Rocks whizzing in all directions”

The 8,611-meter-high K2 in the Karakoram (in 2004)

“(I am) Grateful that I’m alive and ok,” Turkish mountaineer Gülnur Tumbat wrote on Instagram today. The professor of marketing, born in 1975, lives and works in San Francisco.

On Monday, she reached – with bottled oxygen – the summit of K2, the second-highest mountain on earth, as one of around 40 mountaineers from commercial expedition teams. Gülnur was the first Turkish woman to scale the 8,611-meter-high mountain in the Karakoram in Pakistan.

At that point, she probably had no idea how dangerous the final phase of her descent would be: from Camp 1 at around 6,000 meters down to the Advanced Base Camp (ABC) at around 5,300 meters. As reported, a Chinese climber died in a rockfall during this passage on Tuesday. Gülnur reports that a rescuer who tried to recover the Chinese woman’s body was also hit.

13. August 202513. August 2025

Chinese female climber dies in rockfall on K2

The 8,611-meter-high K2 in the Karakoram (in summer 2004)

On Monday, expedition operator Imagine Nepal proudly announced that its entire team of 15 members had reached the summit of K2, the second-highest mountain on earth. Now, a death has cast a shadow over the success.

According to consistent reports from Pakistan, a Chinese female climber from the team was hit by falling rocks yesterday, Tuesday, and died. The accident occurred between Camp 1 (at around 6,000 meters) and the Advanced Base Camp (5,300 m), it said.

On Monday, around 40 climbers from several teams had stood on the summit of K2 at 8,611 meters.

11. August 202513. August 2025

Summit successes reported from K2

K2 (in summer 2004) — The 8,611-meter-high K2 in the Karakoram (in 2004)

It took a long time, but now the moment has arrived. Today, the first more than two dozen summit successes of the summer season were reported from K2, the second highest mountain in the world, located in the Karakoram in Pakistan. The Nepalese expedition operator Imagine Nepal provided the largest group with 15 members at the summit.

The team was led by Mingma Gyalje Sherpa, the head of the company. For him, it was his sixth K2 summit success. Mingma and Imagine Nepal had taken on the task of fixing the ropes to the highest point at 8,611 meters.

8. August 202511. August 2025

Pakistan: When a body needs to be retrieved from the mountain

The six-thousander Laila Peak in the Karakoram

Following the tragic death of German mountaineer Laura Dahlmeier on the 6,096-meter-high Laila Peak in the Karakoram in Pakistan, many are asking themselves: Should the body of the deceased be recovered after all? Or should her last will be respected?

Laura had written in her will that her body should remain on the mountain if others had to risk their lives to recover it.

This was exactly the case immediately after Dahlmeier’s death: the rockfall that had claimed Laura’s life at around 5,700 meters continued and would have posed a potentially fatal danger to the members of a recovery team.

And if conditions on the mountain improve? Even then, it would remain a dangerous undertaking, Dan Stretch of the US organization Global Rescue informs me.

30. July 202530. July 2025

Breaking news: Laura Dahlmeier is dead

What was feared has now sadly become a certainty. German mountaineer Laura Dahlmeier did not survive her accident on the 6,000-meter Laila Peak. This was announced by her management. The former Olympic biathlon champion and world champion was 31 years old.

She was struck by falling rocks on Monday on the mountain in the Karakoram in Pakistan at an altitude of 5,700 meters. Her rope partner was unharmed and was able to descend to base camp.

29. July 202530. July 2025

Mountain accident on Laila Peak in Pakistan: Great concern for former biathlon star Laura Dahlmeier

Laura Dahlmeier (climbing in the massif Wilder Kaiser in Austria)

Laura Dahlmeier, one of the world’s best biathletes of the last decade, has suffered a serious accident on the 6,069-meter-high Laila Peak in the Karakoram in Pakistan. “Laura Dahlmeier was climbing in alpine style with her female rope partner on 28 July when she was hit by falling rocks. The accident happened around noon local time at an altitude of around 5,700 meters,” informed the 31-year-old German mountaineer’s management team. “She is very seriously injured, at the very least.”

“Her climbing partner immediately made an emergency call, and the rescue operation was launched straight away,” it said. Due to the “remoteness of the area,” a rescue helicopter did not reach the scene of the accident until Tuesday morning.

9. July 20259. July 2025

Dry, drier, Karakoram

The eight-thousander Broad Peak in Pakistan (in 2004)

“Two days ago, above base camp, Ismail Akbarov from Azerbaijan was hit by a stone. This was his first ascent, and it also marked the end of his expedition. The impact damaged his tibia so that he had to be flown by helicopter to Skardu,” wrote Lukasz Supergan from Poland, who is attempting the 8,051-meter-high Broad Peak in the Karakoram in Pakistan this summer, on Instagram yesterday. He himself decided to start in the middle of the night rather than in the morning so as not to kick rocks loose and endanger those climbing below him.

Not only from Broad Peak, but also frp, neighboring K2 and the other eight-thousanders in Pakistan, Gasherbrum I, Gasherbrum II and Nanga Parbat, exceptionally dry conditions on the mountain are currently reported, accompanied by an increased risk of falling rocks. The usual precipitation has largely failed to materialize so far. Nevertheless, light snowfall is expected in the Karakoram in the coming days.

18. June 20252. October 2025

New routes on the seven-thousanders Ultar Sar and Spantik in Pakistan

Ultar Sar (in the center of the picture, the Southeast Pillar) — Ultar Sar (in the center of the picture, the Southeast Pillar

Two alpine highlights at the start of the summer climbing season in the Karakoram in Pakistan: US-American Ethan Berman, Australian-Argentine climber Sebastian Pelletti and Dutch-born Maarten van Haeren opened a new route on the 7,388-meter-high Ultar Sar. The Frenchman Mathieu Maynadier and the Pakistani Mueez Ud din managed a first ascent on the 7,027-meter-high Spantik. Both teams were climbing in alpine style, i.e. they did without fixed ropes, fixed high camps, high altitude porters and bottled oxygen.

22. May 202522. May 2025

Mountaineering in Pakistan is getting more expensive – but not as much as initially planned

The eight-thousander Broad Peak (with the shadow of K2, photographed in 2004)

The uprising of the Pakistani tourism industry has been at least partially successful. The regional government of the Gilgit-Baltistan province has slightly reduced the higher prices for climbing permits for Pakistan’s highest mountains that were decided for this summer.

The Pakistan Association of Tour Operators (PATO) had filed a complaint against the original price increase. The PATO had argued that this was severely damaging mountain tourism in the country. The Gilgit-Baltistan Chief Court initially put the decision on hold. The new revised price list is now available.

23. August 202423. August 2024

Balance of the season for commercial expeditions: Business as usual in the Karakoram

K2, the second highest mountain on earth (in 2004)

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.

22. August 202422. August 2024

Gasherbrum IV: Injured Russian climbers rescued, mourning for Sergey Nilov

Southeast Ridge of Gasherbrum IV (center)

Five days after the avalanche accident on the 7,932-meter-high Gasherbrum IV in the Karakoram, the two injured Russian mountaineers Sergei Mironov and Mikhail Mironov have been flown by rescue helicopter to a hospital in the northern Pakistani city of Skardu. “Their condition is satisfactory”, informed the Russian embassy in Pakistan, without giving details of the nature of their injuries. Initial reports had spoken of fractures.

According to the Russian mountaineering portal mountain.ru, the search for Sergey Nilov, who died in the avalanche, has been canceled. Too much fresh snow had fallen in the past few days, it said. The snowfall had also delayed the evacuation of the injured. Two days ago, a five-man rescue team had brought the two Russian climbers to a spot at an altitude of about 6,000 metres where a helicopter could land.