Two teams of local mountaineers have started another attempt to scale K2 Summit in what is called a final push to the Winter Expedition 2021. The teams are determined to scale K2 Summit by February 5th before the temperature worsens.
The two teams consist of local and foreign mountaineers. One team is comprised of Pakistani mountaineer, Muhammad Ali Sadpara, his son Sajid Sadpara and a climber from Iceland, John Snorri. This team has returned to base camp thrice from higher points due to fast winds.
Another team, named SST comprising 28 international climbers is set to start the trek on Tuesday and scale the K2 summit by February 5th. The organizer of the expedition said that the climbers were at base camp and were waiting for the weather to become favorable to continue climb to the K2 peak.
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Meanwhile, Canadian filmmaker, Elia Saikaly, is also present in Pakistan to film the adventurous K2 Winter Expedition 2021. Saikaly has been updating his Instagram account sharing captivating images of the mountain.
Read more: ‘The people of Pakistan are so nice’ K2 climbers tell the world
In one of his Instagram post, he said that he wanted more Pakistani mountaineers to participate in the summit. “Sadly, we don’t see any other Pakistani climbers here at K2 other than Ali and Sajid. We went into this knowing we wanted to support the local contingent and we’re grateful to have these two men helping us and working with us. Hopefully, in the future, we will see more local climbers from Pakistan employed on future climbs,” wrote Saikaly in his Instagram post.
“It’s been a pretty wild ride for the past 30 days and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. Anyone attempting K2, especially in winter, should be nervous because one mistake up there will cost you your life.
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“The rockfall scares me. The tattered fixed lines scare me. The jumbled mess of old ropes scares me. The weather scares me. The wind scares me. Holding my camera in the extreme cold scares me and just about every other aspect of this mountain elevates my fear compass and keeps me incredibly high alert,” wrote Saikaly while sharing his experience of living in the mountain for almost a month under freezing temperatures.
Read more: 60 international climbers to scale K2 summit in a risky winter expedition
He added that: “This little film project was shut down twice and revived three times. We could have quit numerous times, but we kept pushing and we kept problem-solving. We were resilient. We were determined and we believed in team Iceland/Pakistan.”
