Foreign climbers end K2 expedition campaign due to harsh weather

ISLAMABAD: All the foreign climbers have ended their K2 campaign after three climbers lost their lives and three more went missing due to extremely bad weather conditions in the area, Geo News reported citing sources.

The Alpine Club of Pakistan (ACP) told the state-run APP Tuesday all foreign climbers at the K2 base camp have decided to end the K2 Winter Expeditions 2020/21 considering the harsh weather conditions.

Per details, over 50 climbers have arrived in Pakistan to summit K2 but had to abandon their campaign after multiple incidents foiled their bids.

Climbers from 18 countries participated in the two-month campaign, during which three climbers lost their lives while three others had gone missing.

Muhammad Ali Sadpara, 45, of Pakistan, John Snorri, 47, of Iceland, and Juan Pablo Mohr, 33, of Chile, were last seen Friday around noon at what is considered the most difficult part of the climb: the Bottleneck, a steep and narrow gully just 300 metres shy of the 8,611 metre (28,251 ft) high K2.

On February 5, a Bulgarian mountaineer was confirmed to have died on K2.

He is the third mountaineer to die on K2's slopes this year, after a Spanish climber fell to his death last month.

Russian-American Alex Goldfarb also died on a nearby mountain during an acclimatising mission in January.

A team of Nepali climbers made history on K2 last month when they became the first to scale it in winter.

Conditions on K2 are harsh: winds can blow at more than 200 kilometres per hour (125 miles per hour) and temperatures can drop to minus 60 degrees Celsius (minus 76 Fahrenheit).

Unlike Mount Everest, which has been scaled by thousands of climbers young and old, K2 is much less travelled due to its tough conditions.

In 2008, 11 climbers died on K2 over the course of two days.