It has gotten dark. For hours we have been racing with our minibus down the Karakoram Highway to the north. Time to stretch our legs. Near the town of Chilas we stop at a tea room. Some long-bearded men are sitting in front. We start talking. Smalltalk: “How are you?” “Where are you from, where are you going?” Suddenly my mountain guide is gesticulating wildly. I shall get back into our bus quickly. Inside I ask him why he was so excited. “Bad men, dangerous!”, answers my Pakistani companion. Until now I think that he overreacted then, in the summer of 2004. But I remembered this episode again when I was informed about the murder attack on eleven climbers on Nanga Parbat last weekend.

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The Taliban attack on the basecamp at the Diamir side of Nanga parbat has left even Pakistan experts stunned. „We have been caught cold“, Eberhard Andres told me. He is working for the German trekking agency Hauser Exkursionen and is responsible for trips to Pakistan. „It was really the first time that something like this has happened.“ Last weekend Taliban terrorists had attacked the Diamir basecamp and killed eleven climbers: three Chinese, three Ukrainians, two Slovaks, a Lithuanian, a Nepalese and a Pakistani. The attack was of „a completely new quality“, Dominik Müller, head of the agency Amical Alpin, said to me. Swiss expedition organizer Kari Kobler is shocked as well: „We knew that Pakistan can be a dangerous place. But not in the north!“ All of them expect negative consequences for mountain tourism in Pakistan, which had just began to get back on its feet after lean years as a result of the tense political situation. 

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“Killer Mountain” is written on the sign on Karakoram Highway, where you can take a look at the majestic 8000er Nanga Parbat. Actually the sign recalls the numerous tragedies on the “Naked Mountain” in the last century, for example in 1937, when 16 members of a German expedition died in an avalanche. But now the sign has received a new, oppressive meaning. A hit squad penetrated to the base camp on the Diamir side of Nanga Parbat and shot at least ten people. The Pakistani government said the victims were five climbers from Ukraine, four Chinese and a Pakistani guide.

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The first winter ascent of Broad Peak, but a total of three missing climbers who have been declared dead. That is the result of the five winter expeditions in Pakistan. As always, it’s worth having a look to the details. All the four groups on Nanga Parbat were small teams with a maximum of three climbers. Tomasz Mackiewicz from Poland made the greatest progress, reaching 7400 meters, finally climbing alone. The others got stuck in the deep snow, in icy cold conditions. For me the solo project of Joel Wischnewski remains mystifying.

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