“We’re heartbroken; we inform you that the research of Daniele and Tom has ended. A part of them will always remain on the Nanga Parbat,” Daniele Nardi’s home team wrote on Facebook. “The big pain hurts; facing objective facts and after doing everything possible finding them, we must accept what happened.” So now it’s sad certainty: 42-year-old Italian Daniele Nardi and 30-year-old Brit Tom Ballard have died while trying to fully climb the striking “Mummery Rib” in the Diamir Face for the first time.
Two bodies and a tent
Previously, the Italian ambassador to Pakistan, Stefano Pontecorvo, had already published on Twitter the picture that the Spaniard Alex Txikon had taken from base camp with a telescope from the “two silhouettes” he had discovered at around 5,900 meters. For reasons of reverence I do not show the picture.
One recognizes on it two bodies, one dressed with a red, one with a blue jacket. Daniele and Tom had worn down jackets in these colours. Txikon and the search team, according to the ambassador, had confirmed that these were the bodies of Nardi and Ballard. Next to the blue body one can see also a yellow tent. We may never know what exactly happened to them.
At this point I once again take my hat off to Alex Txikon, Muhammad Ali “Sadpara”, Rahmat Ullah Baig and the other members of the rescue team, who selflessly searched for the two missing climbers and put themselves in great danger.
Pivtsov and Co. back safe and sound
Txikon and his three Spanish companions now want to return to K2 base camp in order to possibly start an attempt to scale the second highest mountain on earth for the first time in winter. Kazakh expedition leader Vassiliy Pivtsov’s team has now returned safely to base camp. The climbers had broken off their summit attempt at about 7,500 meters due to poor visibility.
