Teams are spread out all over K2 as the summit push has begun. Most teams left on Monday and are slowly working their way up the Hill. Sherpas are already at Camp 4, the High Camp and reports are coming in they have fixed the Bottleneck withe ropes. Last night, 17 July, K2 was hit was a big snowfall but it will probably not slow the teams down too much. Of course, avalanche danger is always a consideration, especially above Camp 3.
The Japanese team reported in on Wednesday 18 July:
- C2; Mr. Oyabe, Mr. Yusa, Mr. Shirakura, Ms. Hayashi, Mr. Watanabe, Mr. Iizawa
- C1; Mr. Higashiyama, Mt. Taguchi
- C3; All three of our HAPs (Mr.Fazal Ali, Mr. Amin ullah baig, Mr. Sarbaz)
Elite Himalayan Adventures notes that if Viridiana Alvarez summits K2 this season, she will be the first-ever Latin American women to do so. Gangaamaa Badamgarav is attempting the same for Mongolia.
K2 – Summits on Thursday, Friday and Saturday?
As I posted a couple days ago, Dawa Sherpa of Seven Summits Treks (SST) says they have begun their summit push looking to top out on Thursday, 19th July, 2018. SST posted their member and support team as :
Leader: Chhang Dawa sherpa Nepal
Members
Ms. Sophie Switzerland
Mr. Yoshiharu Nakamura japan
Mis. Viridiana Alvarez Chavez Mexico
Mr. Noel Richmond Hanna Ireland
Mr. Paul Hegge Belgium
Mis. Naoko watanabe japan
Mr. Marek Novotony Czech Republic
Mr. Gheorghe Dijmarescu USA
Ms. Gangaamaa Badamgarav Mongolia
Support
Mr. Krishna Thapa Magar Nepal
Mr. Mingma Gyabu sherpa Nepal
Mr. Chhiji Nirbu sherpa Nepal
Mr. Pemba Thunduk sherpa Nepal
Mr. Mingma Tenjen Sherpa Nepal
Mr. Ngima Thenduk Sherpa Nepal
Mr. Dawa Gyaljen Sherpa Nepal
Mr. Ngima Dorchi Sherpa Nepal
Mr. Lakpa Temba Sherpa Nepal
Mr. Furba Temba Sherpa Nepal
Mr. Dawa Sangay Sherpa Nepal
Mr. Mingma Thindu Sherpa Nepal
Furtenbach Adventures will begin their climb in a few days after their successful Broad peak summit but Madison Mountaineering and Summit Climb’s teams are on their push as is Andrzej Bargiel who will ski down. Also on the push now or in a day or so are Jason Black, Fredrik Sträng, and David Roeske.
Best of luck to all,
Climb On!
Alan
Memories are Everything
8 thoughts on “K2 2018 Summer Coverage: K2 Summit Push Underway”
As a follow up I am certainly not trying to diminish anyone’s accomplishments I’m just truly interested to learn a bit more. The porters are up fixing lines in the bottleneck, but in the winter expedition Denis attempted to go solo with no fixed lines that high. How different a situation is it to summit in these two scenarios?
I understand. Please see my previous reply. As for Denis – he is one of the best in the world and not representative of today’s usual climber on any mountain 🙂
Thanks for reply and info Alan!
How many of these climbers could climb this mountain without sherpas? I follow your blog closely, but have no mountaineering experience and I am always somewhat confused on the role of sherpas and how climbers on these groups would compare to climbers like Denis Urubko who seem to climb without sherpas often?
In general, most everyone who is climbing 8000-meter peaks today, need some kind of support to fix the route with ropes, ladders and high camps. But there are many young strong professional and semi-professional climbers from around the world who can be self sufficient meaning they carry their own tents, food, fuel, stoves camp gear etc. In many case they also fix the ropes themselves but the usual custom is to work together with other teams to share the work of route finding and setting. If there is a large commercial team on that mountain, they will often take over the route fixing responsibilities in order to control the safety and pace – they then ask the other climbers not on their team to pay a small fee of a few hundred dollars. On K2 this year, my guess is 90% of the people need support.
Yes Mingma has a couple and if there are Summits this year, there will be 10 or so with multiple K2 summits. Check out research and download the K2 summit list. It not updated to this year but you can get an idea of multiple summits.
Thanks Alan! I ended up looking at 8000ers website, but it seemed to be updated just until 2001… I didn’t get to the right page, for sure.. I’ll have a second look. Only 10 person with multiple summits, and only if everything is ok this summer…that indicates how tough k2 is, indeed.
13 climbers with 2x K2 (including those who summited for the 2nd time in 2018)
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