Five-member team of Nepali Sherpas summits K2

• Pasdawa Sherpa became the fastest to summit top five 8000m peaks.
• Pasdawa is also guiding Norwegian climber Kristin Harila. 
• Two Pakistani women – Naila Kiani and Samina Baig – are also among them.

Karachi: A five-member team of Nepali Sherpas made the first summit of world’s 2nd highest mountain K2 at 8611m late on Thursday night. They were part of the rope fixing team who reached the top to clear the route for rest of the climbers to push for their summit.

Summiters include Pasdawa Sherpa, Chhiring Namgyal, Siddhi Ghising, Dorjee Gyelzen Sherpa and Rinji Sherpa.

They reached the top of K2 after struggling against high wind and extreme snow conditions on higher area of the mountain.

Expedition organizers 8K summits confirmed the summit by rope-fixing team.

Karrar Haideri, the secretary of Alpine Club of Pakistan, added that the team reached on top at 10:44PKT

Reaching atop K2, the team member Pasdawa Sherpa created history and became the fastest climber to summit top five 800m peak.

“New world record and history has been created in mountaineering history. Pasdawa Sherpa became the fastest to summit top five 8000m peaks (Everest, K2, Kanchenjunga, Lhotse and Makalu) and Fastest to summit top three 8000ers(Everets, K2 and Kanchenjunga) within 69 days summiting Mt. K2 today on 21 July at 22:44pm (Pakistan Time). Previous record was 70 days,” said a statement by 8K summit.

“It has been very tough and challenging weather condition, three days continuously worked and finally the task has been successfully done,” it added.

Pasdawa is also guiding Norwegian climber Kristin Harila. 36-year-old Kristin is targeting world record of the first woman in history and the second person to climb all 14 peaks above 8,000m in just six months.

With the rope fixing team reaching the top of K2, the route is now cleared for rest of the climbers to push for their final summit who were waiting at Camp4 as their progress was earlier delayed due to bad weather and delay in rope fixing.

Soon after the development, other climbers waiting at Camp 4 of K2 started their final summit push and are now likely to complete their summits by Friday morning.

Two Pakistani women – Naila Kiani and Samina Baig – are also among them. Both are eying to create history to become first women from Pakistan to summit K2. They may reach the top together.

Naila confirmed to Geo News that she has started her final summit push along with Sohail Sakhi and Sirbaz Ali. Wajid Nagri and Samina Baig had also started final summit push.

Samina Baig’s team informed that she started her summit push at around 9:30PKT. Wajid Nagri’s team also confirmed his summit push saying that they are likely to reach on top in 14 hours.

Earlier, the delay in rope fixing and extreme weather conditions had forced few climbers to abort their summit plans and wait for another window.

There are also reports of a death of an Afghan climber at K2 Camp3 due to high-altitude sickness but there was no confirmation from official sources.

Meanwhile, Nepal’s famous climber Sanu Sherpa has achieved a unique feat of scaling all 14 eight thousanders twice.

47 year old Sanu Sherpa stood atop 8035m world’s 13th highest peak GII in Pakistan at around 8:17am on Thursday morning completing his double ascent of the 14th 8000er.

He has summitted mount Everest for 7 times, Manaslu, Nanga Parbat and Lhotse for three times each and other top peaks twice each in his career.

There was also a SOS call by a French climber from Broad Peak who said to be was stuck after being unwell. Local administrations were making arrangements to rescue her.