Ailing US mountaineer rescued from K2 base camp

E-Paper | May 30, 2026

GILGIT: An ailing American mountaineer was rescued by an army helicopter from the K2 base camp of his expedition on Tuesday.

Robert Jackson, 38, was part of a 27-member K2 expedition which arrived in Pakistan on June 16, according to the ISPR, the military’s public relations wing.

The expedition was en route to the K2 summit when Mr Jackson suffered from height sickness at the base camp. His colleagues informed government officials in Skardu about his deteriorating condition on satellite phone, who sent a helicopter to rescue the mountaineer.

An official of Skardu police station quoted doctors who had examined the mountaineer as saying that Mr Jackson was in stable condition. After initial treatment, he will be shifted to Islamabad on Wednesday.

The official said the expedition would continue its journey to the K2 summit. Accompanied by about 70 local porters, the expedition started its journey from Skardu 10 days ago.

Published in Dawn, July 8th, 2015

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Pakistan

Jamil Nagri is a Gilgit-Baltistan-based correspondent for Dawn with over a decade of experience in journalism. His reporting and feature writing focus on CPEC, climate change, the environment, and adventure tourism. He can be found on X at @jamilnagri.

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Euro

Jul 08, 2015 11:40am

I have often wonder why we kept the name K2 which is not an actual name. We should rename it Mount Pakistan which will symbolize the federation and her people.

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Adeel

Jul 08, 2015 12:54pm

keep it up - at least our tourism wont suffer

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stehman

Jul 08, 2015 01:05pm

Get well soon

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Pakistan Explorer

Jul 08, 2015 01:25pm

@Euro natural wonders have no nationality

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Batholith

Jul 08, 2015 01:55pm

@Euro Half of it lies in China. It does have a local name, however: Chogori.

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M. Saeed Awan

Jul 08, 2015 01:55pm

@Euro K2 is appropriate name since it stands for the series of mountains at Karakoram. So it symbolize the K1, K2, K3, K4 etc. As K2 is second highest so it is well known.

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Maujkar

Jul 08, 2015 02:03pm

Part-3: HAS is bit weird or rare for summit hopefuls just at the basecamp level: look at : Mike horn – if you are following his current feed, went to K2 Camp II 6700m, and came back to base camp- all pro- mountaineers cycle between high camps and basecamp to acclimatize, before the final summit push. In the end all good for Pakistan, This is NOT bad - its part of the game and Pakistan should be proud to provide an excellent and PROMPT rescue service. There is a dedicated Rescue team based in Concordia which mointors all the summitters in the surrounding...Broadpeak, Gs, K2, etc.!.  Excuse the long chant and wish the best of luck to all the climbers !

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Kamal Pasha.

Jul 08, 2015 02:33pm

@Euro, K2 mean the second highest peak of the Karakoram mountain range.

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