Search called off for missing Himalayan climbers | Mountaineering

A search for the missing British climber Tom Ballard and his Italian climbing partner, Daniele Nardi, who disappeared on the Himalayan peak Nanga Parbat, has been called off.

The decision involved Pakistani and Spanish climbers from nearby K2, a Pakistani mountaineering official told the Associated Press.

Karrar Haidri, the secretary of the Alpine Club of Pakistan, said the search team halted its efforts after another unsuccessful day on Wednesday. He said it had been a “very painful decision”.

The helicopter and foot search was hampered by dangerous conditions and found no sign of Ballard or Nardi.

Ballard is the son of Alison Hargreaves, the first woman to scale Everest alone in 1995. Hargreaves died later that year descending from the summit of K2, the world’s second highest mountain, in the same region as Nanga Parbat, the ninth highest.

Ballard and Nardi were trying to climb a new route on Mummery Ridge when they disappeared. They last made contact on 24 February, when they were about 6,300 metres up the mountain.

On Tuesday, the Basque mountaineer Alex Txikon, who was flown in from K2 by helicopter and dropped at camp one on the Diamir face of Nanga Parbat, had searched on foot around two ridges where it was the climbers may have got into difficulty.

Other members of the team used drones and a powerful telescope to scour the slopes, but there were no signs of the missing men.

According to reports from the team, extremely low temperatures and the continuing risk of avalanches prevented searchers from reaching the location of camp three, the men’s last reported position. Hopes of finding them alive had faded after a week and a half out of contact and in extreme conditions.