Hope is consumed in K2

The hangover from

in winter may have led to a nightmare: if on Friday the death of the Bulgarian Atanas Skatov was known in an accident, today there are fears for the lives of three mountaineers who have disappeared from the same date somewhere in the mountain located above 8,200 meters.

The trio, formed by the Pakistani Ali Sapdara, the Icelandic John Snorri and the Chilean Juan Pablo Mohr (expedition partner of the deceased Catalan, in this same scenario, Sergi Mingote) was seen on Friday for the last time by Ali's son, Sajid , who aborted his summit attack due to a malfunction of his artificial oxygen regulator.

A setback that saved his life.

More information

• Spanish Sergi Mingote dies after suffering a fall while lowering K2

• The pride of Nepal, a teamwork

When it began its return to the last high altitude field, the group was under the bottleneck, where the dreaded, technical and exposed final part of the 8,611 meter mountain starts.

Sajid waited 20 hours for the return of his father and his companions in their tent in Camp 3, at 7,300 meters.

From base camp, they urged him yesterday to abandon the wait: too many hours exposed to the altitude and cold (50 degrees below zero), too much wear and tear to be able to help ... or help himself.

In parallel, a Pakistani army helicopter flew over the mountain to a height of 7,000 meters (this particular aircraft does not fly higher) without seeing any trace of the disappeared, while the good weather window was blurred, the wind at height it was shooting up to 90 km / h and the clouds covered the second highest mountain on the planet.

Pessimism, derived from a realistic analysis, has settled in the base camp, in contrast to the illusion generated on Friday by a stream of false news that ran through the news in Pakistan, a country that was excitedly awaiting a new success from its reference Himalayan , Ali Sapdara.

In 2016, in the company of Simone Moro and Alex Txikon, Ali Sapdara entered the history of the winter conquests of the eight thousand by standing on the top of Nanga Parbat.

Parallel to sporting success, Ali embraced a huge job opportunity: guiding the highest mountains on Earth.

In fact, the also missing John Snorri was his client.

The pandemic had prevented the Pakistani from working in the spring and, according to his friend Alex Txikón, if he went to K2 in winter "it was because he needed income."

Friday's day started with terrible news: while aborting his summit attempt, Atanas Skatov suffered an unexplained fall while maneuvering on the fixed ropes at an altitude of 7,300 meters.

Hours later his death was certified while at the top of the mountain the three now-disappeared mountaineers continued their attempt to imitate the ten Nepalese who on January 16 made history by signing the winter conquest of K2.

After the impact of his impeccable ascent, long days of waiting came, sighing for a window of good weather and a weak wind that would allow a second attack to the top.

Last Wednesday, a score of mountaineers walked the lower slopes of the mountain encouraged by the possibility of reaching the top on Friday and, above all, encouraged by the fixed ropes installed by the Nepalese team up to the very top: life insurance and a remarkable technical work less to face.

Despite this, the withdrawals followed one another in a cascade, and at the moment of truth only the three disappeared and Sajid Sapdara insisted on signing the second winter ascent of K2.

According to information from the base camp, only the Chilean Juan Pablo Mohr traveled without the help of artificial oxygen.

The latter initially shared a team with Sergi Mingote, and upon his death he decided to continue on the mountain, his way of paying homage to his friend.

Snorri and Sapdara had already climbed K2 in the summer and numbered several eight thousand, the same as Mohr.

The trio's GPS trackers have stopped offering their position, their batteries possibly consumed by the extreme cold, and from base camp there is speculation that their headlamps, essential during the descent, did not work either.

According to team members from Nepal who reached the summit nearly three weeks ago, a huge crack disrupts the usual path to the bottleneck, a complication to be aware of during the descent.

As despair gallops, the Government of Pakistan has offered more helicopters capable of flying at higher altitudes and is trying to photograph from the air the upper part of the mountain where it is expected to find the three missing.

In memory is the tragedy of 1995, when an unexpected wind storm literally pulled three Aragonese mountaineers (Javier Escartín, Lorenzo Ortiz and Javier Olivares) from the mountain, the British Alison Hargreaves and Rob Slater and the New Zealander Bruce Grant.

His remains were never found.