It is midsummer in Pakistan’s northern region of Gilgit-Baltistan, on the treacherous and unforgiving Baltoro Glacier, the second longest in the Karakoram Range and one of the largest outside the polar regions. We are trekking our way to the amphitheatre of Concordia, the confluence of the Baltoro, Godwin-Austen, Gasherbrum and Vigne Glaciers. Otherwise known as the “Throne Room of the Gods”, this is an otherworldly place flanked by the greatest concentration of the world’s highest peaks, including the second highest, K2. At an altitude of almost 5,000 metres, it’s hot – really hot. “I’m no expert, but the glacier looks like it’s dying,” proclaims Martin Mazurek, a fellow expedition group member and Professor of Geology at the University of Bern in Switzerland.
The principal cause of the glacier’s demise: “excessive…
