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Against many unfavorable conditions, Nirmal Purja‘s Project Possible team plus two Sherpas from Seven Summits treks successfully summited K2 at local time 7:50 am Wednesday, July 24, 2019. Also Adrian Ballinger  and Carla Perez summited a few hours later at 11:45 am not using supplemental oxygen. Both climbers have now summited both Everest and K2 with no supplemental O’s. There were a few additional people to summit including one from Iran. Sorry no names available yet. Dawa Sherpa posted this update: A huge congratulations the Fixing team for their successful ascent of Mt. K2 (8611m). The team of Seven Summit Treks and “Project continue reading

One by one the major commercial expeditions stating that the conditions on K2 were too dangerous announced the end of their 2019 expeditions. Meanwhile, a few ambitious independent teams have banded together, as expected, to give it one final push as this summer season winds down. Adrian Ballinger tells me “7 of us left on Cesen. About 30 on Abruzzi (Seven Summits Treks and Nims and 2 Hungarians). All Seven Summits clients set up for 25th.” So, as Yogi Berra said “It ain’t over till it’s over.” Big Picture K2 2019 has come down to risk management vs ambition. The continue reading

We have more summits on Broad Peak and the Gasherbrum as the excellent weather continues. Many of the K2 teams have left Base Camp hoping to summit starting mid week. Big Picture The summit for K2 should begin early Wednesday, July 17, 2019, on both routes, the Česen and Abruzzi. Ropes are set to the respective Camp 4 on both routes I expect to see 50 to 75 summits on Wednesday, then 30-50 on Thursday and 10-20 on Friday. After a break, the following week should see another 20-30 summits bringing the season total on K2 to over 100 – a continue reading

The weather on K2 is revealing a kind side for a change. Low winds, little snow and acceptable temperatures have dominated the conditions for the past 10 days. How long this will last is anyone’s guess but for now, no one is complaining. Big Picture There is talk about a lot of snow above Camp 4 and it’s giving the climbers serious pause. Eduard Ulysses gave his usual solid update noting the conditions: On Abruzzi route, the ropes are fixed up to Camp 4, on Cesen route the ropes end about 500m below Camp 4 it seems. Here it will continue reading

Teams across the Karakorum are making summits and progress during an elongated period of good weather. But with the record climbers on K2, some teams are making serious decisions. And a few special projects are seeing success. K2 – Two Routes Open As I mentioned in the last post, Mingma Sherpa of Imagine Nepal has switched from the standard Abruzzi to the Česen route due to crowds. Now it appears that Madison Mountaineering has switched as well. This takes over 50 climbers off the standard route but still leaves about 100 on the Abruzzi. Garrett Madison posted: Our sherpas were to fix to continue reading