The climbing season in Pakistan is all but over for another year. For the most part, it was a very tough couple of months in the Karakoram and Himalaya as teams struggled with poor weather and challenging conditions. Summits were few and far between, although there were some successful bids here and there.
Our friend Alan Arnette has put together a wrap-up of the season on his blog with stats and updated summit numbers, the most glaring of which are from K2. As Alan points out there were a record number of permits issued for K2 this season – 112 in total – with a total of zero successful ascents. That gives you an idea of just how tough that climb is, and also how commercial squads are starting to take over the climbing scene there. But unlike Everest, K2 won’t surrender its summit easily, and it will be a long time before the conditions are even remotely the same on those two peaks.
Elsewhere, Alan reports that one squad still remains in the region hoping to claim a late summit. A Czech team is still on Gasherbrum I where they are waiting out the weather. It remains to be seen if they’ll get another crack at the summit, but the Gasherbrums have seen the most success this summer, so there is a chance we’ll see a few more climbers reach the top before we’re done.
Finally, we have this video that was shot on Nanga Parbat, where Spaniard Ferran Latorre, Frenchman Hélias Millerioux and Bulgarian Bojan Petrov summited via the Kinshofer route on the Diamir Face. For Ferran it was his 14th 8000 meter peak, and a significant accomplishment. The video shows their final steps onto the summit.
CAT14x8000 Nanga Parbat 2016: Cim, Cumbre, Summit! from cat14*8000 on Vimeo.
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