Concordia: Throne Room of the Mountain Gods Part-2

Concordia: Throne Room of the Mountain Gods Part-2

First recorded attempt to summit the “Savage Mountain” was made in 1902 by Oscar Eckenstein and Aleister Crowley, via the Northeast Ridge. Transportation and logistics support was nonexistent in those times and the only nearest human route plied was the
historical Silk Route which meandered its way all the way into the Urumchi, a Southwestern town of the Xinjiang province in China. Trekking to the base camp alone took several days backed up with the help of dozens of low altitude porters who not only carried
all the groceries and kitchen items but also shuttled back and forth to fulfill the supplies.

As per Crowley’s account, the team took 14 days to reach Concordia and the ambitious team made no fewer than six attempts to scale the gigantic peak. The team was able to reach the heights of 6, 525 meters and none of the team members got injured despite
of the lack of modern day climbing techniques or equipment.

Second attempt to scale the mighty peak was made in the year 1909 and was led by Luigi Amedeo, Duke of the Abruzzi who was able to reach 6,250 metres (20,510 ft) on the South East Spur, now called as the Abruzzi Ridge. The route followed by the Duke became
the benchmark of the future expeditions and is still considered as the easiest and most treaded route by the climbing expeditions.

First successful attempt was made no sooner than July 31, 1954 via the Abruzzi Spur and the Italian team led by Ardito Desio reached the summit in the wee hours of the morning. Lino Lacedelli and Achille Compagnoni were the first man who had the fortune
to stand on the peak for the first time in human history, marking a great feat of climbing and mountaineering. The expedition also included Colonel Muhammad Ata-ullah of Pakistan Army who was also part of 1953 American expedition and famous Italian climber
Walter Bonatti and Pakistani Hunza high altitude porter Mahdi.

It took another long break of 23 years before the third successful attempt was made which put first Pakistani climber Ashraf Aman on top of the summit. He was part of the 1977 Japanese expedition and was supported by an army of no less than 1,500 porters
and guides.

K-2 has now been successfully climbed from almost all the routes. Although Mount Everest stands at colossal 8,850 metres above sea level, K-2 is widely accepted to be the toughest mountain to climb with the second highest fatality rate after Annapurna in
Nepal. Unlike Annapurna, however, K-2 has not been climbed in the winter and several expeditions have failed to tame the vicious mountain at the peak of the winter season. 

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Posted by Naveed A Bari on Nov 17 2011. Filed under Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry