SKARDU: A team of Pakistani mountaineers scaled K2, the second highest peak in the world, on Saturday.

Sources in the Everest K2 Central National Research (Ev-K2-CNR) told Dawn that it had organised the expedition to climb the 8,611-metre peak a month ago.

Two Italian mountaineers, Michele Cucchi and Simone Origone, were with the Pakistani expedition for technical support.

The expedition attempted to climb the summit from camp 4 in the morning on Saturday and the team leader, Mohammad Taqi, a resident of Hushey in Baltistan, put his feet on K2 at 2pm.

Hassan Jan, Mohammad Sadiq, Ali Durrani, Ali Ghulam Mehdi and Rehmatullah Baig followed him.

The sources said that Michele Cucchi also managed to conquer K2.

But Mohammad Hassan, the seventh Pakistani mountaineer, and Simone Origone were unable to go beyond camp 4 because of illness.

It is for the first time that an expedition has climbed K2 in the summer.

Ev-K2-CNR spokesperson Munir Ahmed told Dawn that Pakistan K2 Expedition was the first-ever all-Pakistani mountaineers venture. It was supported by the Gilgit-Baltistan government and sponsored by the Italian organisation Ev-K2-CNR.

The expedition started its journey on June 14 and reached the K2 Base Camp in the first week of this month.

The team remained stuck at camps 3 and 4 for several days because of bad weather.

The climbers reached camp 4 on July 24, but had to wait for another day because of heavy snowfall.

Munir Ahmed said two Italian women – Tamoroz and Klaus – also scaled K2 on Saturday.

Nisar Abbas, a local journalist, said it was the first expedition to scale the peak this year.

He said because of negligence of the government, Pakistani as well as foreign organisations and local mountaineers were abandoning the profession.

Mr Abbas said the future of mountaineering in Gilgit-Baltistan was bleak because locals did not have the resources and facilities to take up such an expensive sport.

Published in Dawn, July 27th, 2014