The son of the legendary late climber Alison Hargreaves has gone missing in Pakistan while trying to find a new route up the country’s infamous “killer mountain” in bad weather.

As tensions continued to mount between Pakistan and India, the operation to find British climber Tom Ballard - who grew up in the Highlands - was subject to delay.

The 30-year-old - who has been living in Italy's Dolomites mountain range with his father for the last few years, spent his childhood in Spean Bridge, near Fort William.

He and his Italian counterpart, Daniele Nardi, 42, last made contact with relatives at the weekend.

Read more: Pakistan captures two Indian pilots after aircraft shot down

They were then around 20,000ft up Nanga Parbat - the ninth highest mountain in the world and and the second-highest in the Himalayas after Everest, known for being notoriously difficult to climb.

Nardi contacted his wife on Sunday to report that he and Ballard were holed up along Mummery Rib on the Diamir side of the mountain, but nothing has been heard from them since.

Mr Ballard’s mother was the first woman to conquer Everest unaided in 1995. She died on K2 later that year as part of her bid to climb the world’s three highest mountains unaided in the same year, but she was blown off a ridge by 260mph winds during a hurricane and her body has never been found.

Her death sparked debate about taking risks on the mountains as a parent with a child at home. She had also soloed the North Face of the Eiger while six months pregnant.

Despite the devastating loss, her son, who was six when she died, has followed in her footsteps and became the first person to climb the great North Faces of the Alps solo in winter and in one season back in 2015 - an achievement described by peers as one of the greatest feats in mountaineering.

Pakistani-based mountaineer, Ali Sadpara, who previously conquered Nanga Parbat said he is willing to mount a search, but is being delayed amid the tensions with India. 

Airspace around the mountain was temporarily closed yesterday amid tit-for-tat attacks between the Pakistani and Indian air forces.

Concern was growing for the climbers as bad weather continued last night.

Nanga Parbat became known as the "killer mountain" after 31 people died attempting to climb it before it’s 1953 first ascent by Austrian climber Hermann Buhl. The most infamous accident came in 1937 when seven Germans and nine Sherpas were killed by an avalanche.

An experienced Alpine climber, Ballard teamed up with Nardi as she had been on Nanga Parbat four times in winter. They were climbing alpine style, but Ballard has limited experience of altitude climbing, raising fears over his disappearance.

He said in January: “It’s a new learning experience. I have to learn a lot more about my body and how I react to altitude. Himalayan winter alpinism is so much more remote, so much higher and colder [than the Alps]. It makes everything more difficult and dangerous. The tasks involved in Himalayan climbing are the same, just harder.”

The pair began their ascent of the 8,126m mountain last month, having arrived at Base Camp during the final days of December. 

Ballard’s most recent Instagram post, on February 19, shows him trying to ski down part of the mountain.

Nicholas Hobley, of online magazine Planet Mountain, said Mr Ballard was "regarded extremely highly in the climbing world”, adding: "He's an absolutely fantastic climber and someone you would want to have with you on an expedition."

Nanga Parbat has only been climbed in winter once before as it is "extremely dangerous", Mr Hobley said.

He told Scottish Field magazine in 2016: “I grew up in the Great Glen, between Spean Bridge and Fort William…If you think of your body as a sculpture, Scotland shaped me, and the Alps, beginning with the Eiger, put on the finishing flourishes.”

A Foreign Office spokesman said they were in contact with Pakistani authorities regarding Mr Ballard's disappearance.