ISLAMABAD, July 28: The Alpine Club of Pakistan described the summer of 2013 as probably one of the deadliest, as bad weather forced mountaineers on K2 to leave summit attempt this season.

The climbers attempting the world’s second highest peak were unable to achieve much success on the 8,611-metre-high peak, and retreated to the base camp on Saturday where they made the tough but rational decision of abandoning the mountain.

Alpine Club’s Karrar Haidri shared a message from one of the climbers.

“After a final meeting with all the remaining teams at the base camp the collective but reluctant decision has been made to abandon summit attempt on K2 this season. This is due to the deep and dangerous snow on the mountain,” Adrian Hayes, the British adventurer, said.

However, Kiwi duo Marty Schmidt and his son are still on the mountain. They went from Camp II to Camp III while everyone else returned to the base.

In 2012, more than two dozen climbers reached the K2 summit. However, no mountaineer managed to reach the top from the South side for three consecutive years (2009, 2010 and 2011). Previously, 2008 proved to be a disastrous year as eleven climbers lost their lives on the mountain.

Success in 2011 came from the North side when four climbers, Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner, Darek Zaluski, Vassiliy Pivtsov and Maxut Zhumayev made it to the top.

Success on Gasherbrum

On the other hand, losing comrades to the mountain, Gasherbrum II, has not deterred climbers from attempting various summits this season.

German mountaineer Thomas Laemmle and his expedition of nine climbers reached the Gasherbrum II summit (G-II) on July 18, 2013. Except for Thomas Laemmle, who climbed G-II for the second time and had previously reached ten peaks above 8,000 metres, it was the first ever conquest for the remaining eight members.

Thomas Laemmle was the only veteran climber in the group and had to fix more than 2.6km of rope on G-II alone, a task that is often shared between climbers.

Similarly, Bastian Guggenberger, an engineer from Germany, had been preparing to attempt the G-II peak for a year.

“I could not fathom the magnitude of the mountain standing at its foot. It was twice the size of the mountains we had been climbing in the Alps while preparing,” he said.

What the 34-year-old climber had not expected was how hot it became above 6,000m on G-II. “Towards the end, it was not the steepness or the height that slowed me down; it was the heat. The sun was shining bright and it felt like I had been placed in the middle of a desert,” said Bastian Guggenberger.

His team mate Hans-Guenter was unable to reach the summit but he said he enjoyed coming to Pakistan.

“The media tells very few things about Pakistan and most of them are unfortunately negative. We had a completely different picture when we arrived in Pakistan, but everybody we met here more than welcomed us and we have enjoyed our stay from the moment we landed,” said Hans-Guenter, who is planning to return for another summit attempt next year.

Taiwanese climbers

Apart from the success of German teams on Gasherbrum II, Huang Wen-Chen and Lu Chung Han also reached the summit, becoming the first ever Taiwanese climbers to climb an 8,000m plus peak. They climbed the G-II, which, according to Thomas Laemmle, was twice as hard to summit as Mount Everest.

For Huang Wen-Chen, the G-II summit was an experience of a life time especially after he slipped on its slopes and rocketed 400m down. Luckily, the 35-year-old lived to tell the story.

“I was all confused when I came to a stop, and started coughing blood,” he said, recalling the slide. Standing outside the Alpine Club office in Sports Complex, Huang’s teammates cheered and patted his back and described his ‘second’ life a miracle.

Huang had attempted the 8,000m plus Broad Peak last year but had to withdraw, while for Lu Chung Han, summiting G-II was his first attempt at an 8,000m plus peak.