Marty Schmidt, 53, and his son Denali, 25, have been confirmed dead following an avalanche on the world’s second-highest mountain.

An avalanche reportedly destroyed the New Zealand mountaineers camp on the K2 mountain in Pakistan. The pair went missing on Sunday afternoon as they attempted to climb the 8,611-metre peak.

K2 avalanche: father and son killed

Marty Schmidt and his son, Denali, wanted to be the first father-son team to summit one of the most unforgiving mountains in the world.

Instead, the two men have been killed by an avalanche on the 8611-metre-tall K2 – the highest point in the Karakoram Range spanning Pakistan, India and China. It is the second-highest peak in the world.

Sequoia Di Angelo confirmed the deaths of her father and brother in a post on Twitter on Tuesday.

Denali Schmidt had recently graduated from an art college in San Francisco and the family was “very proud of him too”, his mother wrote.

Read more @ smh.com.au