Background cover photo, credit Waldemar Kowalewski
Asghar is the main manager of the Pakistani company Jasmine Trekking Tours Expeditions, based in Islamabad. It is the company that supported Ali Sadpara and John Snorri. They were the first, along with their climbers, to reach the winter K2 base camp during the first days of December.
As the highest authority of one of the most important teams present in the winter K2, and in charge of the support provided to two of the climbers who disappeared in the preceding days, in Alpinismonline Magazine we contacted him to carry out this interview, to which Asghar very kindly was provided.
In it, as you can see, he makes very clear the position of his company in all this deployment and, in our particular case, he has cleared up a few concerns that we had beforehand. He leaves us a precise testimony regarding very «hot» specific issues, arising from the moment the most outstanding events occurred and this launch turned into a tragedy.
Jasmine Tours, the strongest local company in all this deployment, which as we have been saying in previous notes, perhaps should not have existed, or at least in the way it was planned. Good learning for the future, as Ashgar himself points out in his testimony.
What do you think could have happened to Sadpara, Snorri, and Mohr?
In my opinion on the way back from summit they could have had an accident, due to less sleep last night due to 3 unexpected people from another company and no rope higher than bottleneck which as per agreement and understanding there should be. As the John Snorii team fix rope until c3. and upper part the other teams had to provide this facility.
How did Jasmine Tours come up with the idea of going to winter K2?
K2 winter was always a dream of mountaineers of the world to summit first to make history, John Snorii came last year with another company from Nepal but as you see facebook reports it did not work well with management and services. same last year we had our winter team at base camp and our services was excellent like always so John Snorii shift to us for this winter for his dreams to climb K2 in winter.
When Jasmine Tours approached this season was she aware that there could be many problems like there were, in the sense of the amount of people who were going?
In the beginning when we plan K2 winter and established our winter base camp with advance base camp supplies before the snow started there were no other announced expeditions for winter. and suddenly the SST team starts building up and getting bigger and bigger. due to this last minute announcement with a big team and keep accepting more and more people in the team despite that we were very experienced organizers but they failed to provide a good base camp food and facility to their client at base camp. of course it disturb us too, Winter K2 climbing need very organized and planned decision, and there were many things went different what we though will be. which make loss of our team members.
What can you tell us about Ali Sadpara in regards to how he approached this project, considering the closeness he had with him?
Ali Sadpara is one of the top climbers in Pakistan with 8 eight thousand peaks and all 4 season summits of Nanga parbat including first winter ascent on NP. Johh Snorii looked for a partner from Nepal or Pakistan when we suggested Ali Sadpara he liked our idea because Ali Sadpara was the top most choice of any climber for winter ascent on K2. Later Sajid Sadpara also join the team on request of Ali Sadpara to help him with high altitude works.
How was the entire Jasmine Tours team made up of climbers and Sherpas?
Jasmine Tours was established in 1995 and since then we have a good reputation among climbers around the world. We have a good team of Pakistani Climbers and take help of Nepali Sherpa if need to help climbing in Pakistan. Plus we have a very good ground team which makes each and every adventure of ours the best one.
Would the winter expedition to K2 have existed if there had been no covid pandemic? Would they have been the same?
Yes, we are expecting more groups if there is no covid pandemic, in other end Pakistan efforts against covid is world appreciating, this give confidence among foreign tourists to visit Pakistan.
How was the relationship between your group and the busiest SST? Did they agree on push days?
John Snorri did not want to collaborate or join Mingma Gyalje Sherpa because of his attitude last year. All the rest of the other groups collaborated professionally with our team.
Two of the missing climbers were by Jasmine Tours, Sadpara and Snorri. Did they consult with your company about push decisions? At what point did Jasmine Tours cease to interfere with them?
On high altitude our services did not involve any decision our services are base camp services, so in general we are consulted through our Army Liaison Officer Captain Haris who has thuraya phone at base camp and Radion set.
Do you think that Jasmine Tours had some degree of responsibility for everything that happened on the mountain with its climbers? In any case, what would they be and should be corrected for the future?
Our services agreement was until base camp, in that sense we do not have any responsibility of any act of expedition we deal beyond base camp. We are more concern what happened higher up, use of our team tent by other team at c3 and rope issue above base camp as a ground agent we can highlight these among climbing community and make sure this did not happened again.
Both you and your climbers, were you aware that there was not enough space up there for so many people?
Yes, our climbers and I was aware but we did our part of job to secure our space for safe nights at high altitude.
How was the bottled oxygen handling? We know that at least Ali was without oxygen, although regardless, was there provision upstairs in case an emergency arose?
Emergency oxygen is always part of climbing those who can afford it and have a sense of safety. Our team also has emergency oxygen with them.
How long did the Jasmine Tours team stay at base camp?
We stayed maximum to make sure if there is any chance of there return until government announced them dead, our team is still marching back and left base camp on February 19, 2021.
Do you think that some climbers, I speak in general, regardless of the company they went with, could not have accurately measured the scale of this challenge? Do you think there were people there who shouldn´t have been?
Yes, there are many new faces among strong climbers in the other company team. K2 in winter is not for new climbers without any previous winter experience. They should not be there, it make mountain busy and puts pressure on professional climbers.
After this experience, would you launch a winter expedition to K2 again?
Jasmine Tours like other companies did not launch winter expedition by itself rather we provide on request ground services to expedition in winter and summer.
Does this K2 experience leave you any learning? Would you promote it again after everything that happened? Would you make any changes?
If we see such a busy winter again we will warn our clients of possible dangers and safety measures, and make make extra measures so that this incident not happened again.
Thank you very much Asghar for this excellent testimony and your predisposition.
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