Gunmen shot dead 10 foreign tourists at its base camp last year, but for serious mountaineers, the allure of Pakistan’s “killer mountain” remains irresistible.
Militants stormed Nanga Parbat base camp last year on the night of June 22, dragging the climbers out of their tents and shooting them along with their local guide.
The massacre badly hit tourism in Pakistan’s wild, mountainous north, which is home to some of the world’s highest peaks and most challenging climbs.
Three winter summit attempts have brought fresh hopes for the industry, crucial to the local economy, as it gears up for the summer climbing season.
Pakistan’s second-highest peak at 8,125m, Nanga Parbat has never been climbed successfully in winter because of the treacherous weather conditions.
Its fearsome Rupal Face, rising more than 4,000m from base to top, presents one of the most difficult — and tantalizing — challenges in climbing.
Simone Moro, one of the world’s leading alpinists, was among those to return unsuccessful from Nanga Parbat this winter.
The Italian has now made two attempts to climb the peak in winter and said the mountain is drawing him to make a third.
“I have felt strange feelings there, feelings that I have never felt before at the foot of a mountain,” he said. “Nanga is not just a mountain, it is a whole world on its own to be discovered and explored — a planet apart from the Himalayas.”
“The Rupal Face is incredible, it’s like a giant planet standing in front of you, seducing you to climb it,” he added.
Nanga Parbat earned its grisly nickname after more than 30 climbers died trying to conquer it before the first successful summit in 1953.
The events of June last year gave the name a new, more sinister overtone, but Moro says the incident was a blip and he wants to encourage others to come to Pakistan.
“I consider Nanga Parbat as the most safest place in Pakistan,” he said. “What happened last year was just a tragic episode, accidents can happen anywhere in the world, but that never means it will always repeat itself.”
David Goettler, a German member of the expedition led by Moro who has twice attempted K2 — Pakistan’s highest peak and the world’s second-highest — said he was astonished by the attack.
“I could not believe it, I was like ‘How on earth did the terrorists come there?’” he said. “I have visited Pakistan six times in the past and I have a super-good relationship with the people there.”
The regional government in Gilgit-Baltistan has slashed the fee for climbing in winter by 95 percent to US$270.
Moro said it was very difficult for mountaineers to get visas for Pakistan — a common gripe from tourists who face seemingly endless bureaucratic hurdles to visit even for a short time.
“You have to literally fight for six to seven months to get a visa for Pakistan — you need to open your doors in order to let people come in,” Moro said.
Ashraf Aman, the first Pakistani climber to scale K2, says the government is making no serious effort to encourage tourism.
The country’s powerful intelligence services — which keep a close watch on foreigners traveling outside of major cities — make life difficult for those who do arrive, said Aman, who now runs a tour company.
“It is very difficult to get a visa, and if a tourist’s luck wins him a visa, he regrets his decision the moment he arrives in Pakistan,” Aman said. “The security and intelligence agencies start never-ending sessions of questions, one after another, at each destination.”
Nestled between the western end of the Himalayas, the Hindu Kush mountains and the Karakoram range, Gilgit-Baltistan houses 18 of the world’s 50 highest peaks.
It is also home to three of the world’s seven longest glaciers outside the polar regions and hundreds of its mountains have never been climbed. It is the lure of Nanga Parbat that draws Moro back, and the famous names that have climbed it in the past — Reinhold Messner, Steve House and Tomaz Humar.
“Climbing Nanga Parbat is like crossing an ocean or a desert, heading to the peak with the idea of joining two points across a treacherous nowhere,” Moro said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in