Young Pakistani mountaineer Shehroze Kashif and fellow climber Fazal Ali have been rescued from Camp 1 of Nanga Parbat and are on their way to Gilgit in an army chopper.
The two climbers had gone missing a day earlier (Wednesday) while descending after completion of their summit of the 8,126 metre Nanga Parbat - also known as ‘killer mountain’.
On Thursday, by 11am news emerged that the two climbers had reached Camp 2 and were safe.
Earlier, they were spotted while descending from Camp 3 to Camp 2. The rescue mission to bring back the climbers had to be put off due to weather.
Before that, Kashif and Ali were seen reaching Camp 3 after being stuck for the night right above the camp due to bad weather.
They managed to reach Camp 3 safely and are in the best of spirits and health despite having to spend the night on the mountain.
They were trapped just above Camp 3 after summiting the killer mountain due to bad weather and contact had been lost, prompting rescue operations for their safe return.
The duo was stuck at 7350m on their own with no contact.
The team had gone missing on the way back from summiting the ninth highest mountain in the world, the Nanga Parbat (8,126 metres) on Tuesday.
A rescue operation was started as soon as the news was received.
Shehroze Kashif became the youngest mountaineer to summit Nanga Parbat on Tuesday. This was also the eighth time he was conquering a peak higher than 8,000 metres.
Shehroze Kashif becomes youngest climber to summit Nanga Parbat
Kashif is also the youngest Pakistani mountaineer to have ascended seven 8,000+ peaks including Mt Everest, Mt Makalu, Mt Lhotse and Mt Mansalu that are part of the Himalayas in Nepal and bordering Tibet, K2 and Broad Peak of the Karakoram in Pakistan, and Mt Kangchenjunga, which is also part of the Himalayas on Nepal’s Indian border side.
Kashif’s partner Fazal Ali hails from Shimshal and is also an experienced climber, with the distinction of summiting K2 three times. He has been part of multiple expeditions of other peaks in the Karakoram range.
Kashif’s father has since also uploaded a video appeal on Twitter via his son’s account.
Nanga Parbat is known as the Killer Mountain due to its astonishingly high summit attempts to death ratio. Every seventh attempt to conquer the mountain dies, according to 8000ers.com.
It is the ninth highest peak in the world and the second-highest in Pakistan. At 8,126 metres, it is among the 14 summits that are higher than 8,000 metres.
Kashif and Ali had reached the Nanga Parbat base camp on June 30. They started their push for the summit on Monday evening through Kashfar wall.
