GILGIT: Three members of a foreign expedition team have arrived at the base camp of the 8,126-meter Nanga Parbat to summit the killer mountain through the Rupal Face.

German climber David Göttler, Ita­lian Hervé Barmasse and American Mike Arnold are the members of Nanga Parbat winter expedition 2021-22.

Qudrat Ali, a Pakistani guide, and two cooks are also part of the expedition.

Meanwhile, a German photographer Paolo Sartori is also with the ex­p­edition, who will document the team’s progress and will return from the base camp.

It will be the first attempt at any peak over 8,000 meters in Gilgit-Baltistan during this winter season.

Rupal Face is a 4,500-meter tall wall that culminates at the 8,126-meter summit of Nanga Parbat.

According to the expedition officials, the climbers will try to ascend the largest unevenness in the world, of more than 4,500 meters tall wall, which couldn’t be summited in previous 10 winter attempts.

Naiknam Karim, chief executive officer of Adventure Tours of Pakistan, which has organised the expedition, told Dawn on Wednesday that the Nanga Parbat winter expedition team had established the base camp on Monday to acclimatise.

Italian mountaineer Reinhold Messner and his brother Gunther had made their first ascent of

Nanga Parbat through Rupal Face in 1970. The pair then traversed down the unexplored Diamir Face, where Gunther had died in an avalanche.

German climber David Göttler, through a social media post, said “Our chances of success are very, very slim. Nevertheless, since I was here in the winter of 2013-14, I’ve always wanted to come back to this mountain, on this side of it, and in this season,” he said.

Published in Dawn, December 30th, 2021