Jubilee reaches its peak
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — It’s not quite as high as Mount Everest, but it’s been about three times as dangerous to conquer. And on Monday, an Italian marked the 50th anniversary of his grandfather’s first successful climb of K-2 by summiting the mountain.
Italians Lino Lacedelli and Achille Compagnoni first scaled K-2, the world’s second-highest mountain, on July 31, 1954. Compagnoni’s grandson, Michele, reached the summit along with four other climbers. Four other people from a Spanish team — including Edurne Pasaban, the sixth woman ever — also summited Monday, according to Naiknam Karim of Adventure Tours Pakistan.
They were the first climbers to reach the top of K-2 in three years. Previously, only 189 people, including Spokane County Commissioner John Roskelley, have ever reached the summit of K2. Pakistan kicked off its three-week celebration of the K-2 Golden Jubilee earlier this month with an opening ceremony in Islamabad. Lacedelli, now 78, trekked back to K-2 base camp for a ceremony and banquet.
Over 1,350 trekkers from 22 countries have come for the festivities, Secretary of Tourism Jalil Abbas said.
Nestled in the northern regions of Pakistan, home to five of the world’s 14 tallest peaks, K-2 is so remote it is not visible from any inhabited place. It takes four or five days of hiking, or a 90-minute helicopter flight, to get to base camp.
Of the 189 who had made it to the top of K2 before this season, more than 50 died — about half of them on their way down. That makes K-2’s ratio of fatalities to successful summits about 27 percent.
Everest has had nearly 2,000 summits with about 180 deaths, a fatality ratio of about 9 percent. Nepal’s Annapurna, the world’s deadliest mountain, has had 130 successful summits and 53 deaths, giving it a summit to fatality ratio of about 41 percent.
This year, K-2 already has been struck by tragedy. In June, three South Koreans climbers died in an avalanche, and five Pakistani porters drowned while crossing a river.
Mountaineering is the largest part of Pakistan’s tourism industry, Abbas said. Of the $600,000 of tourism revenue generated annually, $460,000 is from mountaineering.
In honor of the anniversary and to encourage more people to attempt K-2 — particularly foreigners — fees for climbing the mountain have been cut in half, to $6,000 per team.