Islamabad: A French climber, Benjamin Vedrines set a new world record by scaling Broad Peak (8,051m) in seven hours from the base camp.
According to Secretary of Alpine Club of Pakistan (ACP), Karrar Haidri, the French climber flew back in a paraglider Tuesday night to the base camp while a Russian-Polish climber reached the top of the mountain in 14 hours without using bottled oxygen.
Haidri congratulated the members of the two expedition teams—Seven Summit Team (SST) and Blue Sky—for reaching the peak of the world’s 12th highest mountain.
The summiteers who reached the peak on July 19 include Marco Camandona, Pietro Picco, Thomas Krapfl, Raffaele Barbolini, while those who scaled the mountain peak on July 20, Wednesday are: Adriana Brownlee, Gelje Sherpa, Dorota Lidia Samocko, Dawa Nurbu Sherpa and Moses Fiamoncini. Now they are set to reach their next and ultimate destination, K2, the second highest (8,611 meters) and the deadliest mountain.
The expedition members have already established camp 1, camp 2, camp 3 and deposited supplement oxygen, food, tents and other equipment and acclimatised recently.
These national and international climbers have bright prospects in their mission as weather has been predicted to remain clear in the Karakoram till July 25.
100 mountaineers on way to scale K2
At least 100 international and national climbers are heading towards K2 and in the next two days, good news is expected, said Haidri.
The Pakistani climbers Naila Kiani, Sirbaz Khan, Wajid Nagri and Abdul Joshi are also among the mountaineers who continued their efforts to summit K2.
Haidri said a record number of mountaineers were expected to report this week at K2, Broad Peak and Gasherbrum-II and Gasherbrum-I. Various expeditions have also started the summit push on Broad Peak, Gasherbrum-I and Gasherbrum-II.
Pakistan home to five above 8,000 metres peaks
Five of the 14 8,000-metre peaks in the world are located in Pakistan: K2 (8,611-metre high), Nanga Parbat (8,125-metre), Gasherbrum-I (8,080-metre), Broad Peak (8,051-metre) and Gasherbrum-II (8,035-metre).
Haidri said more than 400 climbers would attempt to scale K2 during the current year. The prevailing peaceful environment in Pakistan and the introduction of online visas had helped attract such a large number of international tourists this year.
This is the first year since 9/11 that a record number of mountaineers are expected to arrive in Pakistan for the summer expedition.
According to him, as many as 1,400 international climbers — the highest numbers since 9/11—are arriving in Pakistan to summit the world’s highest peaks. Last year, 550 climbers from across the globe arrived in the country for adventure tourism,
Most of these mountaineers are from Europe, the United States, the United Arab Emirates, China, Russia, Poland, Japan and Norway.
