ISLAMABAD, Aug 10: After three days of failed attempts, an army helicopter rescued a trapped Slovenian climber from Nanga Parbat “killer mountain” by a rope sling on Wednesday in what officials called a high-risk mission on icy heights.

But Tomaz Humar, a celebrated mountaineer and a national hero of Slovenia, who was plucked by an Army Aviation Lama helicopter in the early morning rescue, appeared undaunted and was reported to be planning another attempt on the 26,660-foot (8,125-metre) Himalayan peak, an official source said.

The climber had been stranded for eight days at 21,520 feet while trying a solo ascent to the world’s 10th highest mountain from the dangerous Rupal face, from which no attempt had been made in the past. Heavy clouds thwarted previous attempts to rescue him on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

As weather cleared, two helicopters resumed the mission at 5am on Wednesday taking advantage of low temperatures, a military statement said.

One helicopter, flown by Lt-Col Rashidullah Baig and Maj Khalid Amir Rana, ‘hovered over the site for 10 minutes and rescued the climber in a sling operation,’ said the statement issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR).

By 6.45am, Mr Humar was brought down to his expedition’s base camp ‘tied up with a rope and outside the helicopter’, it said and described the climber as ‘hale and hearty’ at the base camp where his colleagues had stayed on while he had gone for the solo effort.

“Our information is he is planning to try again and consulting his colleagues at the base camp,” the official source, who did not want to be named, told Dawn.

But there was no immediate information about whether Mr Humar wanted to make the attempt again from the Rupal face or take another route or whether he would do it alone or with any other member of his team.

Nanga Parbat is known as the ‘killer mountain’ because of many climbers who perished on its slopes.