Mountain rescuers were last night forced to abandon the search for a Polish climber after finding his French climbing partner alive on the Himalayan peak of Nanga Parbat.
Elisabeth Revol, 37, and Tomek Mackiewicz, 42, were attempting to climb the mountain, nicknamed “killer mountain”, without oxygen when they got into difficulty.
Ms Revol was found by rescuers who ascended to the stranded climbers’ last known location after the pair were spotted from base camp struggling to descend the 8,126m (26,660ft) peak in northern Pakistan.
Ludovic Giambiasi, a friend of Ms Revol’s, wrote on Facebook that two rescuers would descend with her after resting for a couple of hours and the group would be airlifted off the mountain.
However, rescuers, hampered by strong winds and -60C temperatures, were unable to find Mr Mackiewicz.
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“The rescue for Tomasz is unfortunately not possible, because of the weather and altitude it would put the life of rescuers in extreme danger,” Giambiasi wrote. “It’s a terrible and painful decision. We are in deep sadness. All our thoughts go out to Tomek’s family and friends. We are crying.”
In their last message by satellite telephone on Thursday the pair had reported difficulty with cold and high winds, with Mr Mackiewicz suffering from frostbite and snowblindness. Witnesses said Ms Revol was seen moving normally, but Mr Mackiewicz appeared to be crawling and had separated from her.
Three years ago Ms Revol and Mr Mackiewicz reached 7,900m before being forced to turn back. “At that altitude in winter you freeze instantly; the slightest hitch and you’re dead,” Ms Revol said after that attempt. She loved the extreme conditions at high altitude, she said. “You’re free, transfixed by the silence, the wind and the mountain.”
It is not known if the pair reached the summit before they ran into trouble.
Nanga Parbat, the ninth-highest peak in the world, is known as the “killer mountain” because 30 climbers died before the summit was reached in 1953. In 2013 Islamist gunmen shot dead ten foreign climbers and their Pakistani guide at the base camp.