**Well Done. Hope they complete their descent safely.
First Pakistan team of climbers scale K2 summit**
The first team of Pakistani climbers to scale the world’s second tallest mountain, K2, has arrived at the summit.
K2 lies in Pakistan, near the northern border with China. The climbers made it to the summit at 02:30 (22:30 GMT on Friday).
Mountaineers regard K2 as more challenging to conquer than Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak.
Correspondents, however, say descending from the top is more dangerous.
The Pakistani climbers were undertaking their expedition on the 60th anniversary of the first successful ascent of K2.
The current expedition - called K2 60 Years Later - includes six Pakistanis: Hassan Jan, Ali Durani, Rahmat Ullah Baig, Ghulam Mehdi, Ali and Muhammad Sadiq. Three Italians are also part of the group.
Individual Pakistan climbers have reached the top before - but this is Pakistan’s first successful team attempt.
The BBC’s Shahzeb Jillani in Islamabad says many have died returning to the base camp in the past as the descent is trickier.
In June, the Italian organisation supporting the Pakistani effort announced it had installed a weather stationfeeding data to the climbers and researchers monitoring activity in high mountain regions.
Re: First Pakistan team of climbers scale K2 summit
How does one get to that level of climbing to be able to climb K2? I had never heard of a rock climbing gym until I came to the US, and even then rock climbing gyms were not as big of a thing as they are now.
Re: First Pakistan team of climbers scale K2 summit
Attempts included Col. Muhammad Ataullah in 1953 which failed, he was again part of the first successful ascent in 1954. Amir Mahdi from Pakistan was also included in first successful expedition.
Re: First Pakistan team of climbers scale K2 summit
Climbing a dry rock is much easier than climbing an ice covered rock @ 28,000 ft or more.
I cam across another interesting piece of infomation on the net:
K2, Pakistan/China
Officially K2 is the world’s second tallest mountain. However, according to some reports for a few weeks every year it actually becomes taller than Mount Everest and therefore the tallest mountain in the world. This argument is based on the fact that in the winter the mountain gets covered in a ridiculous amount of snow, which means that it is able to surpass its taller cousin- albeit very briefly.
