ISLAMABAD - Italian professional climber Daniele Nardi described Pakistan as completely safe for all kinds of sporting activities especially for mountaineering.
Talking exclusively to The Nation on Tuesday just before his return to his homeland, Daniele said: “Last year, a highly unfortunate incident took place in Diamer, where some mountaineers were killed by the terrorists. People tried to scare me and wanted me not to embark on scaling down Nanga Parbaat, but I decided to go against all the odds and now I must admit I have taken the right decision.”
Daniele, 37, said that he had discovered a new route to scale down Nanga Parbaat. “I have managed to reach around 6,000 meters keeping in mind, it is too tough peak to climb even in Summer, but after that weather made it almost impossible for me to further scale down and after waiting for two days at the base camp, I finally decided to return back.”
“I have scaled 6,000 meters alone as two other climbers Germany’s Ralf Dujmovits, 52 and Poland’s Zaluski Dariusz Jerzy, 54, left me before the start of the journey. I can't say I will come again next year to complete the mission, as I have to inform about my assignments to my sponsors, but I managed to scale down five 8000 meters and above peaks which include Mount Everest in 2004, Sheesha Pangma in 2005, K-2 in 2007, Nanga Parbaat in 2008, Broad Peak also in same year. I had started mountaineering in 2001 and managed to scale down Ghasabrom-II in the very first year of my professional career, since then I had managed to scale down number of peaks,” he added.
“It is my passion and also bread and butter. I have opened two schools in Italy, where I have around 35 plus students o different age groups, where I have few assistants, who train them about mountaineering, as I am usually out of the country on different climbing missions,” he asserted.
“In 2008, I stopped climbing 8000 meters plus peaks as it was at that time no more in my priorities list, but after that I once again started to scale down peaks. I have to chalk out a plan and then have to send it to my sponsors upon their approval,” he elaborated.
“I must appreciate the way Alpine Club of Pakistan has lent a helping hand to me. They have provided excellent facilities and guide and I am also thankful to the police and other security agencies, which provided me foolproof security during the attempt to summit. Whenever I get a chance I will come back again. I have visited Pakistan seven times before and looking forward to come again and again and I don't feel any security threat. I didn’t find any unusual thing during my recent stay,” Daniele concluded.