Daring rescue on “Killer Mountain”
Published: August 11, 2005
An army helicopter yesterday plucked a Slovene climber from the icy ledge where he was trapped for six days after failing to climb an unconquered face of Pakistan’s “Killer Mountain.”
Tomaz Humar, 36, was hoisted to safety from the notorious western Himalayan Nanga Parbat mountain after two earlier helicopter rescue attempts failed because of high altitude and poor weather.
Humar, who remained in radio contact with his base camp during his ordeal, returned there around 6:30 a.m.
He was dehydrated, hungry and showing early signs of frostbite but suffering no serious health problems, according to a posting on his expedition website.
“He fell on his knees from exhaustion since he could barely walk,” the site reported. “They laid him on the sleeping bag, he cried, hugged everyone around him and kept thanking the (helicopter) crew.”
Pakistan’s military hailed the rescue as a “highly daring and extraordinary mission” conducted above the normal ceiling for flying - and rivalling its 1983 rescue of a Belgian mountaineer in the Himalayas from 6,700 metres. Humar’s team had issued an international appeal on Saturday for a helicopter crew and the Slovenian Embassy requested the army’s help.
Two Lama aircraft were stripped of “optional equipment” to help in the risky mission, the army said in a statement. Neither was able to land near where Humar was sheltering, so one chopper dropped a sling to him and carried him away.
The army said Humar had been stranded at 6,500 metres, but his website said he had climbed down and had been huddled on a steep slope at around 5,930 metres.
Humar, a customs officer who lives in Slovenia, is a veteran of 1,500 ascents around the world. He was climbing Nanga Parbat via its unconquered Rupul Face.
Nanga Parbat, listed by the World Almanac as the world’s 10th highest peak at 8,125 metres, is more widely known as “Killer Mountain” because of the many climbers who have perished there.
In all, 31 people died trying to reach the summit before it was finally conquered by German mountaineer Herman Buhl in 1953.
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