ISLAMABAD: Tamara Lunger, one of the seven women on a K2-climbing mission, reached the top of the 8,611 metres high mountain on July 26, that too without an oxygen reserve.

Ms Lunger had been dreaming of climbing 8,000 metres plus peaks since she was 15 years old.

“I guess one of the reasons why I chose to climb K2 was because it is the hardest to conquer,” said 28-year-old Italian mountaineer, who scaled her third 8,000 metres plus mountain.

“K2 was not on the list this year. It was a last minute decision to come to Pakistan to climb K2 after a friend made a random offer to join his expedition against the wishes of my friends, who had described the country as a hostile territory,” she said.

Ms Lunger had been training for the climb since a year.

When it came to K2, she and her team members went up as an expedition without porters, and carried their own gear. This is what made climbing hundreds of metres of steep slopes harder.

“It really took a toll on us, especially carrying our gear from camp II to camp III. I got so exhausted that it seemed impossible to push ahead, and I thought I was done carrying the backpack that weighed around 30kgs,” said Ms Lunger, who is a trainer, an ice skier and works as a waitress.

As if the physical difficulties weren’t enough, she recalled, the mountain grew mentally challenging too.

She saw a comrade falling and injuring himself, something that could make many think twice and retreat.

But since she had already fallen in love with the mountain it was enough to push her forward.

After getting acclimatised, it took her four days to climb from the base camp to the top.

“It took us 15 hours to climb from 7,900 metres to cover a distance of over 700 metres to the top of the second highest peak. We left the camp past midnight. Surprisingly, the weather was exceptional, which is a fundamental factor when climbing K2. We have one or two windows in a climbing season, each window offers about three to four days of clear skies to reach the summit,” said Ms Lunger, who described Pakistan as a great climbing destination, and looking forward to returning again.

Sitting in the hotel lobby, waiting to fly back home, Ms Lunger explained that the biggest fear while climbing was death. “But it is a choice we make because this is what we want,” she said.

Her team leader, Giuseppe Pompili, who also climbed K2 without supplemental oxygen, bagged his third 8,000 metres plus mountain. In 2006, Pompili became one of the 150 climbers to have conquered the seven highest peaks in the seven continents. Today, a little over 350 people have accomplished this feat.

Published in Dawn, August 18th, 2014