Annapurna (8,091m) has recorded the season’s first ascent with at least 54 climbers making it to the top of the 10th highest peak, expedition organizers said.
Sajid Ali Sadpara, son of Pakistan’s iconic mountaineer Mohammad Ali Sadpara, made a successful summit of the peak on his own and without using supplementary oxygen, his expedition organizer Seven Summit Treks (SST) said.
Sadpara has already summited K2 (8,611m), Gasherbrum-I (8,080m), Gasherbrum-II (8,035m), and Manaslu without supplemental oxygen. He wants to summit three more peaks–Kangchenjunga (8,586 m), Dhaulagiri (8,167 m) and Makalu (8,481m), without oxygen this spring.
He is the first Pakistani to stand atop the true summit of Manaslu last year, while the majority of expeditions were called off after a series of avalanches. Sadpara aims to summit all 14 peaks above eight-thousand meters in alpine style.
Climbers started thronging Annapurna base camp from mid March, aiming to summit the peak by early April. However, incessant snowing hampered the expedition. Some teams even returned to Kathmandu, while many teams took a few days off from the mountain.
A group of Sherpas led by Pasang Nurbu Sherpa from Seven Summit Treks fixed the climbing rope to the summit early on Friday morning. Climbers of Imagine Nepal Treks and Elite Expeditions also reached the summit.
Six foreign climbers and eight Sherpa from Imagine Nepal reached the summit. Chinese Wang Zhong, Japanese Naoki Ishikawa, Sashko Kedev of Macedonia, Maria Alexandra Danila of Romania, British Nadia Lisa Khoso and Canadian Jill Wheatley were supported by Kili Pemba Sherpa, Tamting Sherpa, Phur Galjen Sherpa, Dawa Sherpa, Tshering Samduk Sherpa, Suman Gurung, Ngima Nuru Sherpa and Pemba Chhiri Sherpa.
Mingma Gyalje Sherpa aka Mingma G was leading the team, who returned from Camp II of Annapurna to join the search and rescue mission of his three missing guides in the Khumbu incident on April 12. A huge serac collapse triggered an avalanche in Khumbu Icefall sweeping three of his climbers into crevasses.
The rescue team has identified the potential location where the trio might be buried by the fallen ice mass. “It would take a few more lives to dig my brothers out so we had to leave their bodies underneath the ice,” he wrote in a post on his Facebook.
Mingma G, owner of the Imagine Nepal expedition company, has also committed to supporting the families of the deceased in his post of Friday, which happens to be his birthday.
Imagine Nepal has been assigned to fix the line above Camp II this season on behalf of Expedition Operator’s Association Nepal, a task that was being carried out by Seven Summit Treks in the past.
IFMGA Guide Mingma G is a well known mountaineer globally. He has a team of seasoned Sherpa guides with expertise to fix ropes in several 8,000ers. The task of rope fixing had just begun above Camp II when the incident occurred. His rope fixing team, despite all odds, is carrying out their task. The three missing guides were not part of the rope fixing team.
