Sajid Ali Sadpara, son of the renowned mountaineer late Ali Sadpara, who went missing with two others during their winter summit to the mighty K2 on February 5 this year before being declared dead, announced that he has retrieved the body of his father, as he completed his summit to K2 again without oxygen.
Sajid Sadpara had shared his intention to summit the K2 again to make a documentary on the life of his father as a mountaineer and to find the bodies of the fallen climbers, including his father.
"I want to go to K2 and know what happened to my father and his companion John Snorri," he had said before leaving for the summit.
Sajid Sadpara, along with Canadian filmmaker Elia Saikaly and Pasand Kaji Sherpa from Nepal, started the K2 summit on July 24.
This time, not only did he complete the K2 Summit, but also was able to find the bodies of his father and Snorri.
Sajid Sadpara's K2 summit
Alpine Adventure Guide announced the successful completion of Sajid Sadpara's K2 summit.
"Great news from K2 to the whole nation especially the mountain lovers, another milestone achieved that Sajid Ali Sadpara summited K2 the second time," it announced.
Sajid Sadpara also announced that he had retrieved the body of his father.
"I have secured the body of our hero at C-4. An Argentinian climber had been a great help in bringing the body of our hero at C-4 (Camp-4). I offered Fatiha and recited Holy Quran on behalf of the whole nation. Secured place with Pakistan flag," he said on social media.
In a series of tweets on Wednesday, the official Twitter account of Team Ali Sadpara had said: "Sajid Sadpara is securing the bodies of fallen climbers to a safe place. At the moment, immediate retrieval efforts can harm the bodies as well as pose great risks to people involved. A consensual course of action will be made for final retrieval. We are proud of Sajid & team for the search of bodies and summiting the K-2 in honour and a tribute to his companions. As per instruments and the presence of fig8, it is now confirmed that climbers had summited K2 in winters and were frozen to death due to a storm on their way back. #MissionSadpara #HonourAliSadpara"
"Sajid Sadpara has fulfilled his duty as the son of #AliSadpara. He has secured the body of our hero at C-4. He single-handedly not only retrieved the body from a dangerous slope but also managed to bring it from bottleneck to C-4. An Argentinian climber has only helped him #K2Search"
On Thursday, it tweeted: "#TeamSadpara is so proud of our son who has done some extraordinary task on the heights by retrieving the body from 8400m and bringing it down to C-4. In total, he has spent 36 hours in the death zone above 8000m plus. A true son of #AliSadpara".
As per the official statement, issued by the Information Minister of Gilgit Baltistan, the bodies of Sadpara and his companions, Iceland's Snorri and Chile's Juan Pablo Mohr, had been located at the bottleneck of the K2.
"The deceased mountaineers were identified by the colour of their clothes," read the statement.
Ali Sadpara, Snorri and Mohr departed to scale the K2 on February 3, 2021, but went missing on the same day. After losing contact with them, Pakistan Army carried out a thorough search but the three mountaineers could not be found. Later, the mountaineers were declared dead.
