1939 American Karakoram expedition to K2 turned to one of the team, Jack Durrance. When Durrance at last made his manuscript expedition diary available in 1989 it seemed instead that the primary failings had been with the deputy leader, Tony Cromwell, as well as with Wiessner himself. In 1961 Fosco Maraini described it as "one of the worst tragedies in the climbing history of the Himalaya". K2 is on the border between what in 1939 was the British Raj of India (now Pakistan) and the Republic of China. At it is the highest point of the Karakoram range and the second highest mountain in the world.
Balti language "Byaltae" from , which, in Tibetan, means "water gorge." The historian Ptolemy, also a general in the army of Alexander the Great, named the region "Byaltae" in his book. In fact, Baltistan is the Persian translation of "Baltiyul", "homeland of Balti." Balti people are settled on both banks of the Indus River from Kargil district in the east to Haramosh Peak in the west and from the Karakoram in the north to Deosai National Park in the south. The Balti ethnicity is primarily Tibetan in origin, with some Dardic admixture. Balti is a Tibetic language. In some rural areas, the