British climber whose mother died on K2 goes missing on Pakistan's 'Killer Mountain'

[#Dobe~ClasSy!☠]

British climber whose mother died on K2 has gone missing while ascending a peak in Pakistan known as “Killer Mountain”.

Tom Ballard had been tackling the perilous Nanga Parbat with an Italian climbing partner, Daniele Nardi, but the pair have not been heard from since Sunday.

The 30-year-old is a distinguished climber and in 2015 became the first person to ever complete a solo climb of all six major north faces of the Alps in one winter.

His mother, Alison Hargreaves, was the first woman to reach the top of Everest unaided.  She died in 1995 during a descent from the peak of K2 in the Himalayas.

On Sunday, Mr Nardi’s ground team reported that the pair had ascended to around 6,300 metres on the 8,100-metre mountain, which is the ninth highest in the world.

However, they added: “The weather is not good, there was fog, sleet and wind gusts.”

It was the last communication the support team were to receive from the two men, who had maintained contact through satellite phone and radio.

Initially the lack of communication was put down to weak signal coverage in cloudy conditions, but no trace of the pair could be seen when the weather cleared.

Mr Nardi’s team wrote yesterday that “the alert has been growing” since Tuesday morning and a rescue operation was now under way.

Ali Sadpara, a Pakistani mountaineer who conquered the peak two years ago, has been drafted in to potentially assist the search, they said.

Plans to use a helicopter to sweep the mountain face was initially scuppered by the sudden escalation of tensions between Pakistan and India this week, which caused airspace to close.

Edited February 27, 2019 by NANO
Added "British"