K2 Progress, Everest Dancing, Tomek’s Wife Thanks Everyone

The Polish K2 team continues to fight the weather, but now over on the Abruzzi route. On Everest, they are dancing at base camp! Both teams are eying February 20^th as a potential summit date.

See this post for full background on the K2 and Everest expeditions and the history of winter attempts on the highest two mountains on Earth. Both expeditions need to summit no later than the spring equinox on March 20, 2018, at 0:15 PKT for K2 and 18:00 NPT for Everest to meet a winter summit definition.

The Big Picture

Is climbing a team sport, or a team of individuals? In the old days of true National Teams, members were selected for their skills and experience. They didn’t know if they would have a chance to summit as that was decided by the leader after they had worked together to get camps set up and perhaps fixed rope on the route. Every leader had their own selection criteria but mostly it came down to who was strongest to make the summit. Remember in the “old days”, if one member summited, the entire expedition was called a success.

This winter season we have seen many examples of how teamwork goes in modern times. On K2, there is a clear split between Denis Urubko and the rest of the team. He is even going so far as to taunt them in the media. On Everest, Txikon and crew seem to be working well together even posting videos of them dancing and having fun. And on Nanga Parbat, it was the worse of all worlds with a close partnership to make the summit, then death and now an ugly time of finger pointing.

To be clear, climbing these high peaks – in winter – is an almost impossible task – just look at the success rate. It takes a strong team of climbers, complete with strong egos, to break trail in deep snow, put in fixed ropes, establish camps, fight the wind and stay focused and motived during long periods of downtime. But the real test comes when they go for the summit. That is when they need to be working as a closely knit team supporting each other with a shared purpose and understanding of the risk profile. If one member wants to be more aggressive than the others, they will waste precise energy arguing over continuing or turning back.

With summits window emerging for next week, now is the time to gel as a team.

Winter K2 – Fixing the Abruzzi

The Polish team has completed a few reconnaissance climbs to inspect the condition of the Abruzzi and determined they will need fixed ropes. They found some old ropes that are encased in ice, but will need to bring more up. Keep in mind, they are already familiar with the route as many of the team was on it this summer for training and knowledge with no attempt to summit K2.

Polish climbers, Piotr Tomala and Marcin Kaczkan wanted to fix the route to Camp 1 around 20,000’/6100m yesterday but the weather tuned bad so they left a cache of supplies just below C1. The plan for today, 14 February was to send  the High Altitude Porters (HAP), Saddik and Jalal, to complete the route at least to C1.

Denis Urubko continues to criticize the team and methods on his blog. This time he does a “told you so” series of rants saying they should have climbed from the east side of K2 and they never should have attempted the Česen or be on the Abruzzi now. And today he does interview with RussianClimb showing him hoping to reach Camp 3 on the Abruzzi but stopped by weather. He did reach 6500-meters, alone, with more rope. But once again, he criticizes his teammates and leader but obeys orders to return to a lower camp when weather moves in. Its makes for an interesting read (link). He ends his post with a hint that 20 February might be a good weather day and then adds “opps”. He is certainly focusing the attention on himself.

You can follow them directly on their website, Facebook, and SPOT tracker

Winter Everest – Still more Wind, But a Break Soon?

Alex Txikon posted a fun video of how they are spending their time at base camp waiting for low summit winds. reviewing the computer models on Moutnain Weather, next Tuesday, 20 February 2018, could be a day with low winds up high. If this is true, they would leave later this week to get in position to push for the summit then leaving the South Col on Monday night.  Txikon posted on Facebook just now “The Base Camp is all covered in snow these days before the summit. Getting ready!”

You can follow their movements on Alex’s GPS tracker,  Twitter,  Instagram, and Facebook.

Nanga Parbat: Appreciation, Finger Pointing and Lost Hope

The echo of Tomek Mackiewicz’s death and Elisabeth Revol’s rescue continues to haunt Nanga Parbat, and in some ways the Pakistani mountaineering community.

Mackiewicz’s wife, Anna Antoinette Solska, posted on his Facebook page a classy and emotional thank you to all involved in the search for her husband. It began:

I would like to express my profound gratitude to Elisabeth Revol for staying with Tom as long as possible, for bringing him as low as possible, for taking immediately a fight to save him, for words of comfort for me, which in such a dramatic situation both for Tom and her alone was able to direct me to tell me that he was doing everything he could to help him. She did everything in her power to that moment where she had to continue to fight to save her life too. We are unable to imagine the dramatic situation in which she found herself or the moral tragic choice she had to make. We have no right to judge. I’m with her all my heart to get better. Thank you for her love giving tomek to children, for her willingness to support children and Tom’s family. Eli, thank you.

Please read her entire post.

After Elisabeth Revol’s angry press conference where she lashed out at the Pakistanis, Polish and French embassies claiming their delays cost  Tomek Mackiewicz his life, she is now blaming the press for getting her story wrong. However, the French media BFMTV quoted the French climber, Revol, “I have a lot of anger in me, she continues. We could have saved Tomek had there been real relief made on time and organized.”

Her Facebook post starts:

Started by Messner, this path was to be the culmination of our physical and mental preparations, with tomek, we knew that the summit would not be easy.

Fifteen days we separate from this epic story widely reported by the press… reported, but also distorted, words extirpées, out of context.. I don’t want to report the facts, but rather tell you what, today , count to my eyes…

Please read her entire post.

Finally Pakistan Mountaineering News defended Pakistan on their Facebook with a series of four points (highlights only, please read entire post):

1. First, Pakistan is a developing economy and ‘Tourism’ sector receives much less attention. Despite, it has world’s best wonders. Neither there are institutions for high-demanding-skills rescue operation on mountain nor has it modern resource and equipment.
2. Second, these mountaineers go on Nanga Parbat at very economical package. Such economical packages do not cover many essentials. It is only their bravery and audacity that make them to summit in the winter.
3. Third, Askari Avidiation does not have high-tech helicopters that can hover around in inclement weather condition. As it was coordinated rescue operation, nobody could help Tomek and Elisabeth in private capacity.
4. Lastly, Poland or French official authorities did not contact State of Pakistan officially after this rescue. However, Eisabeth was given utmost care and attention. The Chief Secretary of Gilgit-Baltistan enquired after her in hospital. She did not utter a word.

Mackiewicz’s father was desperate to put together a team to retrieve his body. He found the money and the climbers, but the Pakistani Government said no – too much risk. I suspect they are weary of the criticism.

With Nanga over, time to focus on K2 and Everest. My best to all the climbers on all these teams.

Climb On!
Alan
Memories are Everything