*Nanga Parbat Winter Expedition Rescue - Epilogue:* Alex Txikon and his team with Ali Sadpara are in Skardu at the moment. Alex would be on his way to K2 BC tomorrow.
Alex Txikon and Ali Sadpara (alongwith Imtiaz and Dilawar) took significant risks in looking for Daniele Nardi and Tom Ballard. On the second day of his arrival at Nanga Parbat, Alex, Ali and Dilawar went up just above Camp-II. Unfortunately it wasn’t possible to go any higher as the area was dangerous and avalanche-prone. Alex flew his drone from this point looking for the disappeared climbers. Unfortunately, a serac fell around 500 meters above and triggered an avalanche. The rescue team had to take evasive action to save their lives and in this process the drone got crashed. The team descended down to Camp-II and Ali managed to recover the crashed drone and they tried once again but couldn’t spot the climbers. Another smaller serac later fell as well starting a smaller avalanche. This basically assured the rescue team that it was extremely dangerous to keep on going up the Mummery Spur. From Camp-I, Alex Txikon used his telescope extensively but couldn’t find the climbers.
On the last day at Nanga Parbat (7th March), Alex made a positive visual identification of the bodies of the two climbers using his telescope from mid-way between Base Camp and Camp-I. The bodies are a little bit over Camp-III (roughly around 5900m). The reason the bodies couldn’t be identified from Camp-I was that the camp is just way too close to the Mummery Spur and the bodies were behind a rocky spur. The bodies could only be visually identified going away from Mummery Spur and looking at that spot from a different angle, which is exactly what Alex did. Various photos were also taken by Alex which also show the rope fixings around the bodies.
Given the current location of the bodies, any mission to retrieve the bodies would be an extremely dangerous endeavor. The weather has changed with temperatures rising which is resulting in multiple avalanches per day. The area between Camp-II and Camp-III is avalanche-prone as experienced personally by Alex and Ali, and would entail massive risk for any team to retrieve the aforementioned bodies. Unfortunately it won’t be possible before next Winter season.
My deepest condolences for family and friends of Daniele Nardi and Tom Ballard.
Shamyl.