GILGIT: At least one hundred climbers from multiple expeditions on Monday began their push for the K2 summit, to take advantage of weather conditions that are likely to remain clear until July 22.

Meanwhile, six climbers managed to scale Broad Peak as several foreigners started their push to reach on top of the peak which is 8,051m high.

Sources at base camp told Dawn that climbers were taking advantage of the clear weather window

Before their departure to higher camps, a puja ceremony was held at the base camp by Nepalese climbers who prayed for their safety during the ascent and descent from the summit. “This is first summit push this season … team members have already fixed ropes from base camp to Camp 3 … [have] deposited oxygen, and stocked tents with food,” the sources added.

Sakhawat Hussain from Summit Karakoram told Dawn that 10 climbers from the Pioneer Adventure team, 23 climbers from the 8K Expeditions team, three climbers from the Dolma team, and four climbers from the Makalu Extreme team started the summit push on Monday. Climbers from Elite Expeditions, Imagine Nepal, Seven Summits Treks, and Adventure Pakistan also started their summit push.

Base camp sources told Dawn that 250 total climbers would be in action at K2 this summer, while 150 climbers had abandoned their attempts to push for the summit.

Mingma G, the expedition leader of Imagine Nepal team, said that K2 gives a limited weather window and they wou­ld depart for the K2 summit push on Mon­day. “None of our Sherpa and members went above Camp 2 and we were supposed to set up our Camp 3 before summit push but I am here with my best team and we don’t give up anything easily,” he said in a statement on social media.

“We have Rene Dai from Netherlands who is 65 years and trying [to scale] K2 for the fifth time and he alone is enough to inspire us towards our goal. I will have a picture with him on the summit,” Mingma G said.

Another Imagine Nepal team will depart for the Broad Peak push, said the climber as he hoped to see his team reach the summit on July 20.

According to a statement by 8K Exp­e­d­itions, their team will be heading to Camp 2 and hopefully summit by July 21.

Sakhawat Hussain confirmed to Dawn that six climbers, including two from his company, summited the peak at 2pm on Monday. Luc Benoit from Can­a­da and Louis from Bolivia were among the six climbers who reached the top. The names of the other four summiteers could not be known till the filing of this report.

Meanwhile, other expedition teams also started their efforts to summit Broad Peak and Gasherbrum-II. Pakis­tani climber Sajid Ali Sadpara, who started his Broad Peak summit, had also reached Camp 2 by Monday evening.

Published in Dawn, July 19th, 2022