Climber’s son announces search for Sadpara’s body on K2

Islamabad : More than four months after the death of mountaineer Muhammad Ali Sadpara during a winter expedition on K2, his climber son has announced the launch of a hunt for the body on the world’s second highest mountain after Everest.

The government had formally declared Mohammad Ali Sadpara and accompanying Jon Snorri of Iceland and Juan Pablo Mohr of Chile dead two weeks after they went missing on the ‘killer mountain’ on February 5. The search for them by climbers, meteorologists and Pakistan Army’s experts was called off due to bad weather.

“It has been four months and a half since tragedy struck my father on K2. I know he’s not alive. Though grateful to the virtual base camp that used technologies, I won’t begin to understand how to look for him from afar. Now, it is my turn – to go back and see for myself. To trace those last steps,” Sajid Sadpara told reporters at the National Press Club on Thursday. The 22-year-old, who accompanied his father on the expedition but returned to Camp One after the oxygen regulator failed, said he didn’t know what happened to the three climbers but it was possible that they summited or returned before the summit and one of them got injured on descent.

“Maybe bad weather came in and all three took shelter. Maybe something worse – but speculation does not help. My father is with the Almighty Allah, now. He is safe,” he said. Sajid, the youngest person to summit K2 (8,611 meters) in summer 2019 at the age of 20, said he wanted to re-trace those last steps – to see what his father might have seen.

“To see if he [my father] left any signs for me to follow. If there is anything he wants me to know. John kept a journal of all hiding places he would go to if bad weather set in to bivouc and he’s meticulous at planning them. I will go and search all these places with Canadian filmmaker Elia Saikaly and high-altitude porter Fazal Ali, now.

“If I find them [missing climbers], that will be a bonus. If we summit K2, fine, if we do not, that is fine, too. The summit is not the goal. If I don’t find my father, then I will proudly place a plaque at the Gilkey Memorial in honour of my father, who I loved more than anything, who taught me mountaineering, and who is, to this day, one of the greatest, if not the greatest Pakistani mountaineers of all times,” he said.

About the events that unfolded on the way to K2, the young mountaineer said he, his father and John Snorri set out to become the first team to summit K2 in winter early January and were later joined by Elia Saikaly, a Canadian filmmaker, and Fazal Ali, one of the high-altitude porters from Shimshal, Hunza district, who had scaled the mountain three times.

“The weather was brutally cold, and while the season had its challenges, including far more climbers, who were less experienced and came to attempt this winter, our team still persevered,” he said.

Sajid Sadpara said after the team reached the base of the Bottleneck (past Camp IV), he began having problems with the oxygen regulator.

“I couldn’t get a full breath and it seemed there were many problems with the oxygen regulator, which is life support equipment. When I failed to get my oxygen to work, my father suggested I go back to Camp III and wait for other team members. That is the last time I spoke to him. I waited. I got worried. I walked around. I looked up in a bid to see them while praying for their safety. Time stood still and then time fast forwarded. Suddenly, it the very break of dawn and chaos, there was radio chatter and it was all about getting down. Off the mountain. I waited longer. Everyone left to go down the mountain and still I waited.

The young climber thanked Colonel Hassan Bin Aftab of Pakistan Analytica, British-American mountaineer Vanessa O’Brien, Canadian filmmaker Elia Saikaly and John Snorri’s wife Lina Money for making the expedition possible. “This is the same team behind the virtual base camp, which were involved in the virtual search and rescue. “I am also grateful for the support of the Pakistan Army, especially pilots in Skardu, the governments of Iceland and Chile, military and civil authorities in Gilgit-Baltistan, including tourism minister Raja Nasir Ali Khan. Finally, I must thank Canadian high commissioner Wendy Gilmore for believing in my father and me,” he said.