In an interview on Bulgarian national television yesterday, Nirmal Purja confirmed that the Nepali team fixed all the upper sections of K2 as they headed for the summit.
“On the previous rotation we fixed from Camp 2, and on the summit day we fixed everything to the summit, and that’s purely because I knew we would be descending in the night,” said Purja. He added that they had previously planned to fix the whole route for safety reasons.
Purja on the summit of K2.
Purja’s comments echo Mingma G’s, who mentioned that descent was rather straightforward, thanks to the fixed ropes.
This contradicts Pakistani climbing legend Nazir Sabir’s recent speculations. Last week, Sabir accused the Nepali climbers of retrieving the ropes as they returned from the summit, implying that this could have affected the safety of John Snorri, Ali Sadpara, and Juan Pablo Mohr, who went missing during their own summit push on February 5.
Purja declined to comment about what happened at Camp 3, when the Seven Summit Treks climbers found so few tents for so many people, saying that he was not there at the time. But he did suggest how to prevent such events from happening in the future: “[Plan] everything meticulously, check everything in advance, and have contingency plans,” he said.
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