Czech climber dies while attempting Pakistan’s Masherbrum peak

A Czech climber has died while attempting to summit the 7,821-meter (25,659-foot) Masherbrum peak in Pakistan's northern Gilgit-Baltistan region, the country's official mountaineering association confirmed on Saturday.

Jaroslav Bansky, a Czech national who was part of a foreign expedition team, fell from a cliff near Camp 1 on the mountain on Thursday, a spokesman for the Alpine Club of Pakistan told Anadolu.

According to the local English-language newspaper Dawn, the climber’s family members had arrived in Islamabad, and a decision had not yet been made on whether to recover his body from the mountain.

Jaroslav’s expedition marked the first attempt in nearly five decades to climb Masherbrum, which is considered one of the Karakoram’s most difficult and rarely climbed peaks.

He is the second foreign mountaineer to die during the ongoing summer climbing season in Gilgit-Baltistan, which borders China and is home to five of the world’s 14 peaks above 8,000 meters.

French climber Guillaume Pierrel was killed by an avalanche when attempting to scale the 7,282-meter (23,891-foot) K-6 peak in Ghanche district in June.