LAHORE: The funeral prayer for mountaineer Dr Asma Mushtaq, who died on Spantik Peak, has been offered in Lahore, closing a recovery operation that lasted nearly three weeks in some of the most difficult terrain in the Karakoram.
Dr Asma summited Spantik on August 20 and died at an altitude of 6,400 metres during her descent. Local volunteer mountaineers brought her body to base camp on August 31. A large number of people attended the funeral prayer.
Dr Asma Mushtaq, who was based in the United Kingdom, belonged to Lahore.
The 34-year-old reached the 7,027-metre summit of Spantik — known also as Golden Peak — in Gilgit-Baltistan’s Shigar district in good health, according to the Alpine Club of Pakistan. She developed a serious high-altitude medical emergency during the descent at approximately 6,400 metres.
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The Alpine Club said that despite the immediate and dedicated efforts of her mountain guides, who provided every possible assistance under extremely challenging conditions, she could not survive.
She was part of a five-member Pakistani women’s expedition that summited the peak.
Dr Asma worked in the United Kingdom as a doctor specialising in obstetrics and gynaecology. Alongside her medical career she was a traveller, vlogger and mountaineer who documented her expeditions for a substantial online following.
She had completed a winter ascent of the 4,076-metre Musa ka Musallah peak and had climbed Gondogoro Peak, and was associated with expeditions to Rupal and Arandu.
The operation to bring her body down was prolonged and repeatedly interrupted. Snowfall in late August forced the suspension of an early attempt, with the recovery team advised to return to base camp and wait for a weather window after reaching Camp 2.
A five-member team of high-altitude mountaineers from Shigar subsequently located and recovered the body, which was carried down to base camp. It was later airlifted and taken to Skardu before being flown to Lahore.
Gilgit-Baltistan Chief Minister Haji Gulbar Khan expressed gratitude to the armed forces, local volunteers from Shigar, rescue teams and the district administration for their role in an operation he described as extremely challenging.
Altitude sickness encompasses a range of pulmonary and cerebral conditions caused by hypoxia — oxygen deprivation arising from rapid ascent and inadequate acclimatisation. Its most severe forms can develop rapidly and are frequently fatal without immediate descent, which is precisely what is hardest to achieve above 6,000 metres.
The descent is statistically the more dangerous half of any high-altitude climb. Climbers are physically depleted, oxygen reserves are lower, weather windows have often closed, and the psychological release that follows a summit reduces the margin of caution.
The difficulty of the recovery underlines a reality of Pakistan’s high peaks: helicopter operation above 6,000 metres is constrained by thin air, and body recovery is therefore performed on foot by high-altitude porters and volunteer climbers who assume considerable personal risk.
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