K2 update: New team to be formed to undertake recovery operation, today's notable summits

Dream Wanderlust | July 27 , 2021

K2 witnessed the first summit of this session today. The route opening team summited the mountain, today morning. The team includes Lakhpa Sherpa, Mingma Sherpa, and Shanu Sherpa of Pioneer Adventure. According to Ngaa Tenji Sherpa, the Director of Pioneer Adventure, a total of nine Sherpas along with their clients have made it to the summit.

Yesterday, during their summit push, the Sherpa team spotted the three missing climbers Ali Sadpara, John Snorri, and Juan Pablo Mohr below the bottleneck at around 8000m. The mountaineering fraternity is now considering the possibility of recovering bodies of these renowned climbers from K2.

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Asgar Ali Porikh, the head of the handling agency informed Dream Wanderlust that the Sherpa team, who summited K2 this morning, was too exhausted to carry out the recovery mission, after opening up the route all the way to the summit. "Once they safely reach the Base Camp tomorrow, a fresh new team is likely to be formed as the kith and kin of three mountaineers have expressed their wish to recover the bodies. With a meticulous planning, on a suitable weather window, they will set out for recovery mission", he added.

However, to avail rescue helicopter, they need to bring the remains of the climbers down to somewhere at around 6500m. "Undoubtedly this is going to be a very tough job for the team to bring the bodies down. A strong team has to be formed," Porikh said during a conversation with Dream Wanderlust.

In an Instagram post, Ngaa Tenji Sherpa has shared some notable achievements from today's summits. While Ukrainian Dmytro Semerenko summited without supplementary O2, Irina Galay has become the first Ukrainian woman to summit K2. Shehroze Kashif set another record and becomes the youngest Pakistani climber to summit K2.

Photo Courtesy: Pioneer Adventure