Campaign aims to pay tribute to Chinese mountaineers killed at Nanga Parbat base camp.
A three-member expedition is scheduled to leave for China on Thursday to participate in the Pakistan-China Friendship Expedition 2013.
The team comprising experienced climbers including Rehmatullah, Dr Naveed Iqbal and Ahmed Mujtaba will attempt to summit Muztagh Ata, the second highest (7546 metres) of the mountains which form the northern edge of the Tibetan Plateau.
Speaking at a press conference, organised by the Alpine Club of Pakistan (APC), APC President Lt-Col (retd) Manzoor Hussain and mountaineer Nazir Sabir said that the expedition has become all the more important after the recent attack at a base camp in Nanga Parbat wherein
10 foreign mountaineers including two Chinese were killed.
Sabir said that the expedition aims to pay tribute to the slain Chinese mountaineers on behalf of the Pakistani mountaineering community and renew friendship with the Chinese Mountaineering Association (CMA).
The CMA on the initiative of the ACP agreed to launch the joint expedition to ascend Muzhtagh Ata.
The three members expedition will leave for Taxkorgan and Kashgar on Thursday and they will be crossing over the Khunjerab Pass on July 7 and then start climbing Muztagh Ata from July 9.
The team is likely to stay on the mountain till July 27 and is expected to return by August 1.
Earlier this year, the Pakistan-China Friendship Expedition was launched to summit 7,027-metre-high Spantik Peak in G-B as part of the Pakistani government’s programme to commemorate the 60th years of establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 4th, 2013.
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