Mohammad Ali Sadpara will be remembered as a versatile climber by the international community of mountaineers and a hero in his native Pakistan.
He is the only Pakistani to have climbed eight of the 14 highest mountains in the world, and he made the first ever winter ascent of the ninth highest mountain in the world, Nanga Parbat.
On Friday, February 5, he went missing, along with two others – Icelandic John Snorri and Chilean Juan Pablo Mohr – while attempting to climb K2, the world’s second highest mountain at 8,611 meters and also reportedly the deadliest.
His son Sajid was also part of the team and the idea was that the father-and-son duo would climb K2 without oxygen, a feat never before done in winter. But Sajid had to turn around from a spot called the Bottleneck – also known as the “death zone”, some 300 meters from the top – after feeling ill.
Since then he has helped army-led rescue teams search the mountain for signs of his father and the other two men, but there is no trace of any of them. The military plans to resume the search, weather permitting, using a high-altitude C-130 aircraft and infrared technology to spot possible hideouts at the top.
But Sajid doesn’t offer much hope.
“I am grateful to everyone who organizes a search, but they are unlikely to be alive now. So the search should be to get their bodies back,” he said earlier this week.
How did Mohammad Ali Sadpara start climbing?
Mohammad Ali Sadpara was born in 1976 in Sadpara, a village in one of the river valleys of the Baltistan region of the Himalayas in the far north of Pakistan.
Livestock farming is the main source of income in the region, and the young people of the area also work as porters with Western mountaineers and adventure tourists who visit the region every year.
Sadpara completed high school in the village and his father, a low-skilled government employee, later moved the family to the town of Skardu, where Sadpara attended a higher secondary school before continuing climbing.
Nisar Abbas, a local journalist and family member and friend of Sadpara from their village days, describes him as extraordinary from childhood.
“He had the build and habits of an athlete and was also good at studies. He never failed in a class. Because his older brother never did well in school, his father wanted to give him a good education and so he moved him. to Skardu. “
Given the family’s financial constraints, he switched to climbing around 2003 or 2004.
“He was an instant success with tour operators because the expeditions he led were largely successful. He achieved worldwide acclaim in 2016 when a three-man team of which he was a member was the first to reach Nanga Parbat in winter.
Hamid Hussain, a Karachi-based tour operator from Skardu who has known Sadpara since 2012, has similar memories.
“He was brave, kind and very kind,” he says. “And he was so physically fit. We used to hang out a lot, and while there were times when we got breathless and collapsed, he still ran up the steep slopes and then yelled back at us and asked us to be quick.”
On one occasion in the winter of 2016, on a trek from Sadpara Valley to the Alpine plains of Deosai, when frigid winds caught them in a snow-filled canyon and sent shivers down their backs, they saw him smoothly climb the slope and leave. dance across the ridge.
Ali Sadpara had been in tight situations before and he knew the risks.
“I’ve lost 12 of my 14 mountaineering colleagues. Two of us stay,” he said in an interview in 2019. “So my friends often ask me now, Ali, when are you going to die?”
Why climb K2 without oxygen?
One theory is that he worked as a high-altitude porter for John Snorri and had to abide by the agreement he signed with him.
But that was just a ruse, says Nisar Abbas. Weeks earlier, Sadpara had openly expressed his enthusiasm for the attempt after a 10-man Nepalese team led by famed Sherpa Nirmal Purja was the first to reach K2 in winter.
And to set a new record, Sadpara wanted to do it too – but without oxygen. And he also wanted his son to be there when it happened.
Sajid, his son, told the media that they started with some 25 to 30 climbers, both local and foreign, but all returned before reaching the 8,000 meter point.
Sajid’s own condition deteriorated when they hit the bottleneck.
‘We had an oxygen bottle with us in our emergency equipment. My dad told me to take those out and use some. It will make me feel better. ‘
But while Sajid was setting up the cylinder, its mask regulator leaked.
Meanwhile, his father and the two foreigners continued to scale the Bottleneck. His father then turned and shouted to Sajid to keep climbing.
“I shouted that the cylinder had leaked. He said, ‘Don’t worry, keep climbing, you’ll feel better.’ But I couldn’t muster the strength to do it and decided to return. It was around noon. on Friday. That was the last time I saw them. “
When asked why Sadpara insisted that he continue, Sajid said, “The Nepalese had done it weeks before, and he wanted to do it too, because K2 is our mountain.”
What could have happened?
Sajid says he has seen the three men climb the top of the bottleneck, meaning they probably made it to the top.
Experts say that most accidents happen while descending, because even a small loss of balance can send a person into an abyss.
Those who knew Sadpara doubt that he would have made such a mistake.
People in his village remember more than once when a goat nursing Sadpara in the mountains was injured, and instead of slitting its throat, as others would do, he pulled it over his shoulders and walked all the way down to take him to the village vet.
They suspect he probably failed to come back because one or both partners had an accident and he kept trying to find a way to save them.
We will probably never know.
People in the area have been waiting for a miracle.
But, as his son says, given the hostile environment, low oxygen levels and winter temperatures as low as -80C, the chances are slim that the men could have survived at over 8,000 meters for a week.
“This has not happened in climbing history, so we can only hope for a miracle,” Sajid Sadpara told the BBC.