SKARDU, Pakistan, 27 July 2004 — Nine Italian and Spanish climbers reached the summit of K2 yesterday to mark the conquest of the world’s second highest mountain fifty years ago.
On July 31, 1954, Italians Achille Compagnoni and Lino Lacedelli were the first men to scale the 8,611-meter peak in the remote Karakoram range on the border between Pakistan and China.
Half a century later, their compatriot Silvio Mondinelli led eight other mountaineers, including one of the world’s leading women climbers, Spain’s Edurne Pasaban, to the top.
“We just got a message from K2 Base Camp that five Italians and four Spaniards have reached the summit of K2,” Naik Nam Karim, the general manager of Adventure Tours Pakistan, the agent for the expedition, told Reuters.
They reached the summit around 5.30 p.m. (1230 GMT) after climbing for nearly 12 hours from Camp IV at 7,800 m (25,590 feet), he said.
Though the descent has still to come, there had been no casualties during the actual climb, Karim said, though five porters drowned crossing a river on their way to K2 Base Camp early in June.
Lacedelli, now in his late seventies, returned to Pakistan earlier this month to join in a series of events to celebrate the anniversary. British, American and Italian climbing expeditions vied throughout the first half of the 20th century to be the first to summit K2, whose enigmatic name derives from a reference to it by a British surveyor in 1856.
Meanwhile, Italy’s agriculture minister flew to the base camp of K2, yesterday to join expeditions celebrating the anniversary of its conquest by Italian climbers.
The Italians stole victory from the Americans, who had mounted three unsuccessful expeditions between 1939 and 1953. “We consider it the biggest event in our sporting history, because K2 is one of the most difficult 8,000 meter peaks,” Alemanno, himself an avid climber, told AFP.
“It was just a few years after World War Two, there was competition with the Americans and the English, so after the war all Italians put their pride in this feat.”
Alemanno arrived Sunday in Skardu, the alpine desert gateway town to K2 on the sandy banks of the Indus River in northern Pakistan, as the Italian government’s representative at golden jubilee celebrations here.
“For the people who love mountains, it is heaven here,” the minister said after the scenic flight from Islamabad over the majestic Himalaya and Karakoram ranges. Pakistan is home to five of the world’s 14 peaks over 8,000 meters.
A member of the right-wing National Alliance of Silvio Berlusconi’s coalition government, Alemanno had to cancel plans to take the seven-day trek to the base camp earlier this month because of political problems at home. Alemanno said the conquest of K2 symoblized the restoration of Italian pride after the disgrace of World War II.
“After the dark period of the World War II they had to do something that all people, all Italians, were united in thinking about and feeling. So this was also part of Italy’s post-war reconstruction. It was as big as the national football team winning the world cup. I’m sure that at that time reaching the top of K2 was more symbolic for Italian people than for Pakistan.”
