Ali Sadpara - A 'gem' gone missing in K2 snow

The search for missing Pakistani mountaineer Ali Sadpara and his team members Jon Snorri of Iceland and Juan Pablo Mohr of Chile could not be resumed on Tuesday due to harsh weather as the nation prayed for the safe return of climbers.

The messages of prayers continued to pour in on social media platforms with hopes of a miracle for the survival of mountain heroes.

Sadpara and other team members went missing on February 5 during the expedition to K2 – the toughest and most difficult mountain to climb during winters.

Home Secretary Gilgit Baltistan Muhammad Ali Randhawa on Tuesday said the search and rescue operation could not resume due to cloudy weather, snowfall and strong wind.

He said a request for FLIR ( forward-looking infrared cameras) with the latest avionics package had been sent to the Pakistan Air Force.

The golden words of Ali Sadpara

The golden words of Ali Sadpara kept the hopes of nation intact, who had once said, “My spirit soars where the air goes thin, if I ever got stuck on top of a mountain, I will dig an undermine and live there.”

Ali Sadpara Career

Sadpara has record of climbing eight highest peaks of the world and hoisting the Pakistan flag. Pakistan is home to five 8,000m peaks, including K2, Nanga Parbat, Broad Peak, and Gasherbrum I and II. The remaining are in Nepal and China.

Ali Sadpara celebrated his 45th birthday at K2 Base Camp on February 2 before he started the summit bid. In his January 31 tweet, the tough yet full of life Sadpara expressed joy over working with adventurer and filmmaker Eli Saikaly – for “filming him in exchange for dance lessons”.

According to statistics of 8000ers.com, the achievements of Ali Sadpara are: Gasherbrum II in 2006, Nanga Parbat four time (2008, 2009, 2016 – First winter ascent – and 2017), GI in 2010, Broad Peak Fore summit in 2012, Broad Peak in 2017, K2 in 2018, and Lhotse Makalu and Manaslu in 2019.

Ali’s son, Sajid says he and his father were climbing without supplemental oxygen but had a bottle in their pack for emergencies. Also, when he left the three missing climbers, they had no radio or satellite phone. He believes they had an accident on the descent in the Bottleneck, but he cannot be sure.

In a world long dominated by Western climbers, Sadpara, like the Nepalese climber Nirmal “Nimsdai” Purja, who was among the Sherpa team to make the first successful winter ascent of K2 only weeks ago, stands out for his achievements. As well as Nanga Parbat in winter, he had climbed eight of the world’s 14 mountains over 8,000m and secured sponsorship from the Pakistani government to climb the rest, the Guardian reported.

The UK-based newspaper mentioned that Sadpara had started his climbing career as a high-altitude porter on the Baltoro glacier on K2 in 2004, before falling in love with high-altitude climbing, ruing in an interview four years ago the lack of opportunities that Pakistani climbers had compared with foreign teams, despite having five of the world’s highest mountains on their doorstep.

The first ascent of Nanga Parbat in winter in 2016 with Simone Moro and Alex Txikon, however, catapulted him into the ranks of the world’s elite mountaineers.

As hopes get dimmer with each passing moment amidst K2’s severe weather, strong snowy winds and minus 60 degree Celsius temperature, but the flame of Sadpara’s love and passion will remain alive in the snowy mountains forever.