Obviously the father was in the wrong here, but this was also potentially a terrible situation for him.

He then told him to wait for him before continuing his five-hour ascent to the summit with the child’s older brother, who had already gone on ahead.

The article doesn’t go into detail, but if the “older brother” wasn’t much older, and the father didn’t have a way to contact him, he was abandoning one child no matter which way he went. Really irresponsible to let the older brother continue on in this situation.