The snow no longer felt cold. In fact, it felt warm and fluffy. I closed my eyes – and began to drift off.

I was utterly exhausted. Frozen numb and low on oxygen at around 22,600ft up Everest’s Tibetan ascent.

Surrounded by crevasses and treacherous drops, I stopped at an ice bed for rest, failing to realize how easily these mountains can claim lives.

‘Come on, Sadie,’ one of my group’s sherpas, Nima, demanded. ‘We’re not far. Just another hour, then we’re there.’

He was kind, but firm. Because he knew all too well: if I’d fallen asleep, I might never have woken up.

That was March 2018 – and memories of that trepidatious climb came flooding back this week as drone footage of 27-year-old Pakistani Muhammad Hassan’s dying moments on the slopes of the K2 mountain went viral.

We all watched in horror as a mortally injured Muhammad, a sherpa (known as ‘porters’ in Pakistan), lay motionless at 27,000ft, wedged into the snowy rockface of K2 – second in height only to Everest but more fatal.

As is now common on these ‘bucket-list’ peaks, Muhammad was far from alone – surrounded by dozens of eager climbers, many from the West, who pay hefty sums to be shepherded safely to the summit by adept local guides just like Muhammad.

Nima was my Muhammad. And how lucky I was to have him to keep me awake, to hold my hand.

Muhammad wasn’t so lucky – perhaps precisely because he was a sherpa and not a paying tourist.

And as mountaineers took it in turns to apathetically step over the father-of-three’s limp body in their relentless pursuit of the peak, his life slipped away.

Just two climbers were reported to have stopped to help. By the end, he was so stricken he couldn’t talk or even hear.

Worse, a group of Norwegian climbers posted pictures on social media moments after his death celebrating a record-busting ascent time that no doubt would have been scuppered had they paused to come to Muhammad’s aid.

Disgusting, yes. But, sadly, as someone who has spent over a decade in the unique and bizarre world of elite climbing, I can tell you that this travesty of inhumanity was a disaster waiting to happen.

Sure, sherpas and porters look out for each other even if tourists don’t, but at the end of the day, they are under enormous pressure to prioritize their clients.

And these clients, predominantly high-flying, uber-rich Westerners, change at high altitudes.

These might well be decent, kind people at base camp. But, high up as the atmosphere thins, at the peak of human achievement, as the very top of the world looms into view, the look in their eyes can turn menacing.

Why should they jeopardize their own slim chance of success to help another climber? It’s every man for himself.

There’s also the money. An Everest or K2 climb will set you back the better part of $50,000. Even for the few who can afford that, it’s likely a one-time thing.

Training also takes months, often away from family and friends in arduous conditions, acclimatizing to altitudes and building fitness. Sacrifice is essential – and when push comes to shove, the fear of failure can overwhelm you.

I first heard about the concept of ‘summit fever’ – the dangerous compulsion to reach the top no matter the costs – during a 2010 lecture at The Explorers Club in New York City.

As a 23-year-old with no mountaineering experience at the time, I was appalled.

You might die, others might die, but so be it. Surely not, I thought.

But as my experience grew – climbing in Tibet, Nepal, Africa, Russia, Argentina in my holidays – I soon realized ‘summit fever’ is a real and terrifying phenomenon.

By far, the worst offenders I have seen on the mountains are monied amateurs.

Both men and women, transformed into arrogant monsters, decked out in all the most expensive gear but often with no idea, yet insistent that their spending must precipitate success.

Such people also tend treat the sherpas and porters terribly.

They’re also invariably over-ambitious, unfit and often put their guides in real danger at high altitudes.

Nonetheless, the rapid rise of adventure tourism and ‘peak bragging’ has made healthy business for local communities – though only in relative terms (a sherpa can expect to earn $5,000 in a climbing season).

And make no mistake: theirs is the most dangerous job in the world.

I went to Everest in 2018 to set a world record for the highest dinner party, which would take place at 23,149ft – some 6,000ft from the summit.

The expedition raised money for the Nepalese community in the wake of the devastating 2015 earthquake, and thankfully sponsors covered my prohibitive costs.

The sherpas and porters who completed the world record with us became our friends and – as I know all too well – some of us owe them our lives.

They taught us how to dance to Nepali pop, while we treated them to a high-altitude egg and spoon race.

But such an experience is the exception.

On the whole, the marked segregation between the clients and local guides verges on abuse: they’re split off into separate tents and even eat different foods.

No prizes for guessing who gets the tastier dinner.

And this doesn’t just happen in Asia’s Himalayas but in all the world’s poor mountainous regions – from Africa to South America.

And it’s in that context that Muhammad Hassan’s death is as sickening as it is unsurprising. One where sherpas and porters are treated as second-class human beings.

Being completely fair, a mountain rescue at Muhammad’s altitude and in such snowy conditions probably wouldn’t have been best advised or even necessarily possible. But it says everything that so few people bothered to even try.

These men and women adore the mountains they call home. How shameful that Muhammad had to pay with his life just to help others experience that joy.

The Kremlin has warned the US and Britain they will be seen as ‘full-fledged’ participants in the war in Ukraine if Storm Shadow and HIMARS missiles are used to hit targets in Russia or Russian-occupied Crimea.

Vladimir Putin‘s defence minister Sergei Shoigu warned he will target ‘decision-making centres’ in Ukraine – implying he plans to order his military to target Volodymyr Zelensky and his government leaders in Kyiv.

Shoigu said: ‘According to our information, the leadership of the Ukrainian Armed Forces is planning to launch strikes on the territory of the Russian Federation, including Crimea, with HIMARS and Storm Shadow missiles.

‘The use of these missiles outside the area of the special military operation would mean a full-fledged involvement of the US and UK in the conflict entailing immediate strikes on the decision-making centres in Ukraine.’

His claim that Crimea is part of Russia is disputed by the West – and international law – which regards it as Ukrainian.

Putin forcibly annexed the Black Sea peninsula in 2014.

So far Ukraine has used long-range British-supplied Storm Shadow and US-provided HIMARS to hit targets in Russian-occupied areas of mainland Ukraine, not including Crimea.

Shoigu’s threat came as Russia admitted today that it had lost another colonel in an earlier Storm Shadow strike close to Crimea, on the Arabat Spit.

Col Sergei Postovalov, 53, is due to be buried tomorrow after he was fatally wounded in the 10 June strike which hit a Russian command post close to Henichesk minutes after Putin’s deputy premier Denis Manturov had visited.

Putin was reported to have visited the site in April.

Postovalov was a colonel in the Russian Interior Ministry forces.

His death follows the killing of Russian army Major-General Sergey Goryachev, 52, in a strike in annexed Zaporizhzhia region earlier this month – also seen as in a Storm Shadow attack carried out by Ukraine’s forces.

Shoigu is clearly rattled at the power of especially the Storm Shadow with a range of 155 miles, which has been fired from Ukrainian Su-24 war planes.

‘The Kyiv regime is employing a large number of Western weapons and elite formations whose personnel have been trained by NATO specialists,’ Shoigu told the collegium of the Russian defence ministry.

Last week, Yevgeny Balitsky, Moscow-appointed head of the occupied Zaporizhzhia region in Ukraine, admitted the weapons are causing ‘trouble’ and are even more problematic for the Kremlin’s armies than the US-supplied HIMARS systems.

His words confirm the impression that the long-range Storm Shadow has been a game changer for the Ukrainians as Kyiv launches its counteroffensive.

‘They certainly give us trouble with their missiles, I must say, especially Storm Shadow,’ said Balitsky.

‘We’ve somehow learned how to shoot down [US-supplied] HIMARS.

But the [British-supplied] Shadow ones are even harder. They arrive, and have a bigger radius. So it’s a problem for us.

‘In fact, our air defence is having a hard time with [Storm Shadow].

‘It shoots them down, but there’s only a 50 per cent chance of the missiles being shot down.’ 

He added: ‘Out of four, three have recently reached us.

‘Sometimes two make it. The missile is modern, although it is not the newest, but it is fast enough, it flies properly. I mean, at different speeds, at varying altitudes, changing modes, so it is not easy to shoot down.’

Britain announced the supply of Anglo-French-designed Storm Shadows to Ukraine on May 11, answering a long-time demand from Kyiv for long-range missiles to help defend their territory against Putin’s invading armies.

Storm Shadows have also struck occupied port cities Berdiansk and Mariupol on the Sea of Azov, say reports. And the £2.2million-per-unit missiles were used to target Luhansk in the occupied Donbas.

The GPS-guided ground-hugging missiles with a 450kg warhead have a range of around 155 miles. The missiles allow Ukrainian forces to strike deeper into Russian-held territory than was previously possible.

Storm Shadow is a low-observable, long-range, air-launched cruise missile developed since 1994 by Matra and British Aerospace, and now manufactured by MBDA.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace previously confirmed the missiles had been used by Ukraine on May 18– but declined to give further details. 

He said the missiles gave the Ukrainians the ability to strike Russian command and control centres which had been moved further behind the front line to keep them out of range of the rocket artillery systems the West had supplied to Kyiv. 

Ukraine is the only country to be publicly supplied with these missiles by the UK.

Britain also became the first country to provide long-range precision missiles to Ukraine with the delivery.

They were also suspected to have been used this month when Russian MP Viktor Vodolatsky sustained injuries after an attack on May 15. 

The missiles were used for the first time operationally by UK forces in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, where they were tested by the Royal Air Force’s 617 Squadron. 

The RAF and the French Air Force have used them against Isis. Britain also used them against Syrian forces in 2018.

Ukraine’s western allies are ‘all running out’ of weapons to donate, the UK Defence Secretary has said, meaning they may have to buy more to keep Kyiv‘s forces supplied in the face of Russian aggression.

Ben Wallace said that while Western support for Ukraine remains steadfast, ‘we have seen reality, which is that we are all running out’ of defence equipment to donate. 

While Western weapons stockpiles may be dwindling, Russian forces are already lacking in much-needed equipment, he said, with a stark warning that: ‘if you punch Russian forces in the wrong place, they’ll collapse’.

The Defence Secretary was also confident about the progress of the Ukrainian forces, even suggesting that Ukraine could retake Crimea as early as this year in his interview with The Washington Post.

It comes after Rishi Sunak reiterated the UK’s unfaltering military support for Ukraine last week, as Britain sent its most potent non-nuclear missile, the Storm Shadow, to support the resistance against Vladimir Putin’s invasion.

The donation made the UK the first Western country to offer long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine, and added to the extensive variety of weapons gifted to Kyiv by the British government.

Britain has pledged tanks, missile launching systems, NLAW anti-tank weapons, tanks and drones to Ukraine.

The UK has so far committed £4.6 billion in arms, the second most of Ukraine’s allies behind the US ($37.6 billion).

It was reported last month that the US has so far sent weapons valued at about $21.1bn to from its stockpiles, including HIMARS launchers, Javelin anti-tank weapons and a surface-to-air missile system.

Mr Wallace’s assessment of existing munitions levels comes after strategic analyst Howard Wheeldon shared concerning analysis around Britain’s military capability earlier this week.

He told the Mail: ‘All credit to the UK government for its fast response and actions, but the sad fact is that after providing an unquantified number of probably time-expired Storm Shadow missiles, the UK has little else it can give.

‘The notion that we might also have been able to provide fast jet capability left much to be desired, for the simple reason we haven’t got enough to defend the UK and continue our international commitments.

‘When it comes to equipment capability and overall available capacity, we are a nation that, when it comes to defence, is already drained of available resource.’

A report published in March outlined that if donations to Ukraine continue at their current rate, it would take ten years for British weapon stocks to reach an acceptable level. 

Addressing the London Defence Conference last week, the Prime Minister said that the UK is committed to supplying Ukraine with weapons over the long-term.

Mr Sunak said: ‘We were the first country to provide [Ukraine] with main battle tanks and longer-range weapons, we’ve also helped with air defence and trained Ukrainian forces.

‘We’ve led the charge on making sure they’ve had the resources and we are going to be steadfast in our support of Ukraine. Our support is not going to go away.

‘Ukraine can count on its allies, particularly the UK, to continue supporting them. We are united.’

Mr Sunak added that Britain was ‘leading the conversation’ with its allies on what long-term agreements can be made with Ukraine to ensure the country’s security.

The Prime Minister also reiterated his ambition to increase UK defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP – but did not set a date for doing so.

These talented photographers are reaching for the stars.

Their work has been awarded in the annual Milky Way Photographer of the Year competition run by the photography blog Capture the Atlas.

Selected from more than 3,000 photographs, this year’s 25 winning images were captured everywhere from Western Australia’s Pinnacle Desert to the Wind River Range mountains of Wyoming.

Capture the Atlas says: ‘Photographing the Milky Way is a marvellous experience. Modern cameras can capture vibrant details and colours in the night sky beyond what our eyes can see. However, what really matters in any great image is the photographer behind the camera – the idea, plan, and creativity to bring the image to life.’ 

Sharing tips with those hoping to hone their astrophotography skills, Capture the Atlas notes that the Milky Way season ranges from February to October in the Northern Hemisphere and from January to November in the Southern Hemisphere. The best time to see and photograph the Milky Way is usually between May and June on both hemispheres, it reveals. 

Capture the Atlas adds: ‘Besides the timing, the other requirement for seeing the Milky Way is a dark sky that is far away from light pollution. It’s always recommended to get away from light-polluted areas like cities and to visit preferably areas at higher elevations.’ Keep scrolling to see the illuminating pictures that charmed the contest’s judges…

Nuggets WIN Game 1 of Western Conference semifinals vs. Suns, as Jamal Murray’s team-leading 34 points propel Denver to 125-107 victory at home

• Denver trailed by one after a strong first quarter from Kevin Durant and Co.
• But they grabbed control of the game in the second quarter and eased to a win
• DailyMail.com provides all the latest international sports news

By Jake Nisse For Dailymail.Com and Associated Press

Published: 22:54 EDT, 29 April 2023 | Updated: 00:24 EDT, 30 April 2023