K2's beauty blighted by rubbish - 6th September 2023

The imposing, pyramid-like summit of K2 towers above most other mountains in the Karakoram range. Despite being a fraction lower than Everest, at 8,611 metres, it's commonly referred to as the Mountaineers' Mountain. Only the most elite climbers brave its treacherous slopes.

The peak was initially conquered in 1954, but gruelling seasonal conditions meant that the first victorious winter ascent occurred only in 2021. Roughly 700 people can now claim to have summitted K2, and the numbers are multiplying year on year - 2022 witnessed a phenomenal 190 ascents.

With the steady increase in the number of expeditions, so the problems mount and currently, one of the gravest issues is rubbish. The slopes and crevasses of K2 are strewn with an array of discarded items, ranging from oxygen cylinders, tents, ropes to food packaging, all ditched by climbers intent on their mission.

Muhammad Ishaq, the Central Karakoram National Park warden, is acutely aware of the obligation to safeguard it.

Muhammad Ishaq: "There are eight peaks higher than 8,000 metres in central Karakoram. This K2 and G2 mountain area in Pakistan is extremely beautiful. We love it more than life itself, because there's no place on earth with such beauty. So we're putting our life into trying to keep it clean."

After a clean-up operation was organised by high-altitude mountaineer Sajid Ali Sadpara, within a week the 5-strong team he'd assembled had successfully hacked 200 kilograms of debris from the summit's frozen grip.

92 mountaineers and porters have perished while endeavouring to scale K2 and since Sajid's own father, legendary climber Ali Sadpara, is amongst them, preserving the peak from the blight of litter seems a fitting way to honour him.

Sajid Ali Sadpara: "This is the final resting place of my father, so I am voluntarily focusing. Emotionally, I am doing it from my heart. I am doing this work, so inshallah, due to my father's graveyard. So I will try my best to clean this mountain as much as I can."