Pakistan is a climber’s paradise. It rivals Nepal for the number of peaks over 7,000 metres and is home to the world’s second tallest mountain, K2, as well as four of the world’s 14  summits higher than 8,000 metres, writes Wolfgang Rattay

I am addicted to mountains. Whenever possible I spend every free minute climbing or hiking. It’s the same with my son who works in an outdoor shop.
A lot of people shared their worries with me when I announced that my 31-year-old son Jan and I were planning to go to northern Pakistan to see the world’s second highest mountain, the K2 in the Karakoram mountain range. We were planning to go to the base camp of K2 and nearby Broad Peak at about 5,200m.
Some people said: “The Taliban will kidnap you.” Others warned: “I don’t want to see your beheading by Islamic State extremists on TV.”
But our love of the mountains was bigger than doubts about the security situation. Once we arrived at Islamabad airport we flew on a small turbo-prop airplane to Skardu (about 3,000 m altitude), the initial point of our trek to Concordia.
Among mountain enthusiasts, the Concordia — the confluence of the Baltoro and Godwin-Austin glaciers at some 4700m altitude — is known as the world’s number one place to be.
We arranged the trip with Aziz Ur-Rahman, a lovely 40-year-old Pakistani who lives with his German wife and their two young boys in Augsburg, southern Germany. Aziz used to work as a mountain guide in Karakoram, before increasing violence in the area, following the September 11, 2001 attacks, led to the almost total collapse of the tourist industry in Pakistan.
In Skardu, we met Aziz’s 38-year-old brother Mujeeb and two of his uncles. Altaf Hussein, a 64-year-old whimsical looking mountain and tourist guide has worked on his farm since 2007 because there are so few trekkers. Aziz’s other uncle, Shukrullah Baig, a 52-year-old former cook at Pakistan’s most famous five-stars hotel chain is working as a brick layer because of the lack of clients.
For Altaf and Shukrullah this was to be their final K2 tour.
The next day we set off to the remote village of Askole at about 3000 meters. Askole is home to about 500 people in the Shigar Valley and the starting point into the wilderness of the Karakoram mountains in northern Pakistan.
We reached Askole at 7pm when the sun just set. The tents were set up in the dark but we were all awarded with the best food one can imagine cooked by “Magic Shukrulla” half an hour later.
Early the next morning all our food supplies, tents, kitchen equipment, and kerosene for the next two weeks was weighed by a local fixer and chief porter. Then it was loaded onto the back of seven mules and seven locally hired porters.
The climbing was easy and we had no major problems due to good acclimatisation. The only problem was a nasty mule that hit me in the ribs when I walked by. We had no high altitude sickness except Altaf our mountain guide. He had to go down during the snowfall and the total white-out due to the snow.
We did not achieve our goal, to reach the basecamps of K2 and Broad Peak because of heavy snowfall — it snowed nonstop for 60 hours and we lay in our tents drinking tea, sleeping and reading. In the end about one metre of snow fell. This is unusual not only for this period of the year — in winter 30 centimetres is the most that falls, said Altaf, who has been leading groups here since 1980.
Sixty hours later my barometer signaled better weather and we had a clear night and the sun was out for the next two days. We were awarded with a great view of all the mountains after three days of waiting instead of climbing further up. We suffered sun-burn on our tongues because we were breathing with open mouths on the glacier due to the high altitude.
After the huge amount of snow our mules were stuck in the snow and refused to cross crevasses and had to be left on the hill. They were led down a week later by other drivers.
The result of the reluctant mules was that we had to carry down everything on our own just the absolute necessary down. With my ribs hurting badly after the “meeting” with the mule I had to use some extra painkillers to be able to carry my gear.
The way down through deep snow was very exhausting because going down 300m of absolute height on the Concordia means constantly going up and down.
But in the end we all made it down fine. Altaf and Shukrullah had their decent farewell tour from the K2, Mujeeb had his first clients in years and my son and I, who originally came to Pakistan to see the mountains, found some of the nicest people we have met in our lives.
When we said good-bye to each other five adult men burst into tears like little children. We will come back to Pakistan that’s for sure. — Reuters