Goodbye, Ali Sadpara

Muhammad Ali Sadpara, 40, Pakistan's most accomplished climber, according to many experts, is no longer alive. But his death does not mean that he has been forgotten or left forever in the wasteland of the snow that covers K-2 where he met his death just a few hundred metres away from the summit. Sadpara will live on in the hearts of all those who knew him, all those who recognised his skills, all those who had seen him climb, all those who understood his expertise and also recognised the heart of gold he wore.

Sadly, there are just too few people who even knew a little of what Sadpara was about. The climbers of Pakistan are not well known and are not recognised for the heroic feats they perform. Like many others, Sadpara had started off as a porter carrying loads for foreign teams who came to climb the four over 8000-metre peaks that stand in Pakistan. Sadpara wished to climb properly and acquired second-hand gear from the Skardu market near his village of Sadpara, which he then used to create for himself a climbing kit. He was soon recognised as among those that every team wanted on its missions into the mountains and towards the summit. Sadpara felt unfortunate to have missed out on the first winter ascent of K-2 by the purely Nepalese mission made up mainly of Sherpas in January 2021. He was therefore extremely eager to reach K-2 in February for the first time in winter without oxygen, accompanied by a team which included two foreign climbers and also his son Sajid. Sajid abandoned the attempt for the summit after his oxygen supply began to fail. Ali Sadpara and Juan Pablo Snorri however continued to climb. It is here in the treacherous snows and icy glaciers of K-2 that they are assumed to have met their death. The precise circumstances are unknown.

Sadpara's death is a huge loss to Pakistan and to its mountaineering community. He, like the other climbers of Pakistan, climbed without training and often without the kind of equipment Western climbers use. For this too, he stood out. Apart from his skills on the mountains, he also trained others who wished to scale the peaks of Pakistan and of other countries around the world. Ali Sadpara's death then is a huge loss. We only hope that the government of Pakistan will recognise his loss and award him in some way the status of the true hero he always was.