Foreign climbers have started to arrive in Pakistan, and most of them are flying directly to Skardu. Some teams, porters, and BC staff are on their way to the Baltoro and to the Base Camps of K2, Broad Peak and the Gasherbrums. Yet the favorite June mountain remains Nanga Parbat, which lies further to the southwest, still within the Himalaya.
“Our first group reached Base Camp today,” Akhbar Syed of Lela Peak Expeditions told ExplorersWeb. Their team includes Matoco Erroz, Juan Pablo Toro, Alberto Peruffo, Valerio Annovazzo, Cesar Rosales, Ali Musa Sadpara, Imtiaz Sadpara, and Hassan Shigri.
The Naked Goddess will host a mix of climbers hoping to tick off as many 8,000’ers as possible in the shortest time and others climbing at a slower pace without supplementary O2.
Nanga Parbat’s Base Camp today. Photo: Lela Peak Expeditions
The no-O2 group includes:
- Mario Vielmo. Nanga Parbat is the last Pakistani 8,000’er he has to summit. His teammates are Tarcisio Bello and Nicola Bonaiti.
- Alex Gavan of Romania, whose partner this time is Pawel Michalski of Poland. Gavan last visited Pakistan to attempt Winter K2 but left the expedition after Sergi Mingote died.
- Confortola has seemingly recovered from the vision problems he reported at the end of his recent Kangchenjunga expedition. Otherwise, he has given little further explanation about the doubts raised by climbers, outfitters, and the media about his summit claim on that mountain.
Kashif, Brownlee, Harila
In fact, Confortola is shortly going to run into some past Kangchenjunga “summit” partners, including Shehroze Kashif of Pakistan. Kashif summited Kangchenjunga at 3:05 pm on May 5, the same day that Confortola launched his summit push. Kashif’s team has declined to comment on the allegations about Confortola.
The young Pakistani, who had a working tracker and plenty of summit proof on Kangchenjunga, returned to C4 for the night. Here, Kashif told Chris Warner that he had been the first to reach the summit on May 5, together with the rope-fixing team. Confortola’s alleged summit time, without O2, was 2:30 pm — half an hour before the rope fixers.
Shehroze Kashif. Photo: Instagram
The young and the restless
If successful, Nanga Parbat will become the 20-year-old Kashif’s 8th 8,000’er. He is also negotiating with potential sponsors in order to climb the Gasherbrums this summer as well.
Also expected are the 14×8,000’ers record-seekers. This includes Kristin Harila of Norway, likely with Sherpa guides Pasdawa and Dawa Ongchu, as well as Adriana Brownlee and Gelje Sherpa. Gelje has confirmed that he is joining Brownlee for as many of Pakistan’s 8,000’ers as possible. So far, Brownlee has climbed seven 8,000m peaks. She is already halfway through her quest after just one year.
Her only failure was Lhotse in 2021, but she summited it this spring. She admitted on Instagram, “All my memories are a blur…It feels like every moment was equally mentally draining and so it’s hard to distinguish between every [mountain].” Not surprising.
Adriana Brownlee, at some 8,000m summit this past spring. Photo: Adriana Brownlee/Instagram
Brownlee is also hoping to break an age record. Now 21, she intends to summit all 14 8,000’ers by 23. She has some work to do in Pakistan since she has not climbed any of the country’s biggest mountains.
It remains to be seen whether the weather in Pakistan will cooperate as much as Nepal’s did last month. The rope-fixing teams will also have to hurry to get the normal routes ready and the camps supplied with oxygen in time for Brownlee, Harila, and other multi-peak climbers to speed up Pakistan’s five 8,000m peaks.
