K2 2018 Summer Season Coverage: Teams at Base Camp

Teams are arriving at K2 Base Camp so look for climbing to begin soon.

Japanese Arrive

Akira Oyabe and his 10 member team from Japan have arrived at K2 Base Camp. They are having satellite problems but did get a short update out:

6/10: BC (5000 M)
6/11: Set up a tent on ABC (5250 M) and advanced to 5500 m
6/12: BC stay
6/13: Root maneuver for C1 (scheduled)

Rope Wars

Once again the Furtenbach team is complaining about other teams using their ropes and not paying for it. Last year this was broken record so we will see how it turns out this year. Lucas makes the point on Facebook:

The flight to Skardu was smooth with views to Nanga Parbat. It’s very hot and dry this season in Pakistan with record temperatures since weeks. In Skardu our team repacked all gear for the porters. Yes, lots of ropes and hardware for two 8000m peaks. We shipped Petzl ropes from Europe for Broad Peak and K2, where we will cooperate with Madison Mountaineering. Curious to see what teams bring route fixing gear this year and what teams rely on others or even refuse to contribute anything like most of the „individual alpine style climbers“ or small mixed teams did last year. Route fixing is expensive and a lot of hard and dangerous work. Someone has to do it. Every season. Valuate that work! Be fair and contribute if you use the ropes from others. Yesterday they had the always adventurous jeep ride to Askole. Thankfully all went smoothly again. Today our team started the 8 day trek in hot conditions. The mountains along this trek are out of this world…

And the Other 8000ers

Gasherbrum I/II

At 26,362’/8035m. GII is often considered the most attainable of the Karakoram’s 8000ers. There have been about 350 summits of GI and 940 of GII. Masha Gordon tells me:

Helias Millerioux, Yannick Graziani and I are heading for a G1/G2 traverse on Friday this week. I will be updating team’s progress via my facebook account. We will be climbing alpine style without Os and use of porters.

Nanga Parbat

Mike Horn reports in:

It’s been 10 days since we first arrived at base camp. The weather was good at first, then it started snowing and the wind picked up. This didn’t stop our acclimatizing process though. So far we’ve left a deposit at camp 1 (5000m), and made our way to camp 2 (6000m), where this pic was taken. We’re back at base camp now, waiting for the weather to clear before we head up to camp 3 (7000m)!

Climb On!
Alan
Memories are Everything