Pakistan has called off an aerial search for two missing U.S. mountaineers amid signs they may have died in an avalanche on a remote peak in northeast Pakistan.
Pakistani officials said an initial flight over the 7,300-meter Ogre II peak in the Karakoram mountain range showed no sign of the men but found evidence of an avalanche in the area where they were climbing.
The climbers, Kyle Dempster and Scott Adamson, both from the U.S. state of Utah, set out on August 21. They had reputations for being two of the world's most accomplished climbers.
It was their second attempt on the Ogre II peak, one of the world's most difficult to scale. They nearly died last year on the first try, miraculously surviving a 120-meter fall down the mountain.
"Kyle and Scott are not coming home, but their spirit, stoke, and smiles will live on," the Black Diamond Equipment company, which sponsored Dempster, said on its Facebook page on September 7.
Dempster twice won the coveted Piolets d'Or climbing award, most recently in 2013 for a climb in the same part of Pakistan.
