{"id":19968,"date":"2014-07-06T06:17:47","date_gmt":"2014-07-06T12:17:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/?p=19968"},"modified":"2014-07-06T06:17:47","modified_gmt":"2014-07-06T12:17:47","slug":"k2-floating-on-the-baltoro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/2014\/07\/06\/k2-floating-on-the-baltoro\/","title":{"rendered":"K2: Floating on the Baltoro"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"baltoro\"<\/a>We\u2019ve spent the last two days making our way towards K2 Base Camp along the Baltoro Glacier. Today we are camping at Goro 2, about 14, 000\u2019. The weather continues to be mixed with rain showers and little sun. We are hearing reports from K2 Base Camp of snow.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, I felt good and found myself in a swift pace and soon was separated from the team. A recent collapse of an ice wall on the Baltoro had forced a new route so instead of the normal six hours, we were looking at eight or more to reach Urdukas.<\/p>\n

I approached the terminal moraine of the Baltoro and once again was impressed by the immense size of the rock wall and debris. Making steady progress higher, I soon was traversing the moraine proper following a faint trail of rocks and dirt, looking for anything not in nature\u2019s random order.<\/p>\n

I forced a steady pace with my mind switching between the trance that comes with trekking and the focus required not to twist an ankle on the loose rocks.<\/p>\n

I followed an ever-present group of porters ferrying our team\u2019s and other\u2019s gear to the base camps of four of the 14 highest peaks on earth. They moved swiftly, with grace, not seeming to look for loose rocks, it was almost as if they floated.<\/p>\n

Soon I found myself moving along with them, at their pace. In one short segment, I stopped looking at the rocks and focused on the moment. I was second behind a porter with a wooden frame holding a large blue plastic barrel, probably carrying food.<\/p>\n

Behind me were four more porters. We moved in unison, almost touching; a fluid motion that was even, steady, poetic. Skipping from boulder to trail, from dirt to ice it was if we were one moving together, in one another\u2019s footprint.<\/p>\n

I was lost in the moment, not thinking about my pace, my breathing, my steps anything other than moving forward. I too was floating.<\/p>\n

Then the lead porter suddenly stopped. He sat heavily on a large rock, resting his load against the stone. The others followed suit. I returned to reality and kept moving albeit at my own pace, once again looking at the trail, minding my steps. I was no longer floating.<\/p>\n

As I navigated the Baltoro, I found myself alone, a bit lost in the rocky ruble, looking for signs, a hint, of which way to go. Then I would hear a whistle, a clear \u201cHello.\u201d Looking around, a porter would point towards my interim milestone. I raised my hand in simple gratitude.<\/p>\n

For 8 hours, this continued. I never felt alone, I always felt safe and every smile was retuned with a larger one.<\/p>\n

Pulling into Urdukas, the sun came out for a little while, it was nice. I perched high on a rock buttress above camp. My view was astounding. The Baltoro stretched out behind and in front of me, towering rock walls soared two to three thousand feet above, glaciers poked their way from the high valleys defining the sharp edges of seeming impenetrable rock fortresses.<\/p>\n

I was reminded of the power of the little things in life. The small water flow, a steady breeze, tiny grains of sand; all conspired to create what I was seeing. It made me think of how when we as individual become focused on making a difference, our joint efforts can redefine a fight. Alzheimer\u2019s is such a struggle, it takes all of us, large or small, to join together to make a difference. Each effort counts, each effort matters.<\/p>\n

Climb On!
\nAlan
\nMemories are Everything
\n#K2CureAlz<\/p>\n

PS I am now tracking my progress on this page http:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/k2-2014\/<\/p>\n

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We\u2019ve spent the last two days making our way towards K2 Base Camp along the Baltoro Glacier. Today we are camping at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[405],"tags":[42],"class_list":["post-19968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-k2-2014","tag-k2"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19968\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}