Climbing teams are scattered all across\u00a0the Karakoram\u00a0this early July seeking to\u00a0summit the five 8000ers located in Pakistan.<\/p>\n
Most are progressing well with several nights already spent at the lower to mid level camps around 7, 000 meters as they acclimatize to the higher altitudes. A few climbers, five reported thus far, have abandoned\u00a0their climbs due to injury and other issues.<\/p>\n
The week starting with the 4th<\/sup> of July\u00a0saw the weather turn a bit ugly with heavy snow reported at multiple base camps thus teams are locked down for a few days – all quite normal in July in the Karakoram.<\/p>\n As previously noted, it is a busy season on K2 but the other peaks\u00a0seem to be about normal for permits. This is a list of the\u00a0Karakorum 2016 Expeditions<\/a>\u00a0permits issued for all the Karakoram mountains this summer. The summary is:<\/p>\n 224 total<\/span><\/p>\n At 26,362’\/8035m. GII is often considered the most attainable of\u00a0the Karakoram’s 8000ers. There have been about 334\u00a0summits of GI and 930\u00a0of GII.<\/p>\n Usually the Gs are fairly crowded but\u00a0K2 seems to be taking the spotlight this year. \u00a0My Colorado\u00a0climbing buddy, Ryan Kushner<\/a> and team are on GII and have reached 7000 meters thus far.<\/p>\n The ‘Killer\u00a0Mountain’ has a deadly reputation not only for climbers but also as the site of a the 2013 massacre at base camp where 10 people were savagely killed allegedly by terrorists. At 26,660’\/8126m Nanga is know to be one of the more technical 8000ers. There have been around 350 summits including several this past winter leaving K2 as the only 8000er not summited in winter.<\/p>\n There are just\u00a0a few teams on NB and they are making progress. Ferran Latorre<\/a>\u00a0reports on\u00a0his blog that they have been in base camp for two weeks. They tagged 7,000 meters and began considering a quick\u00a0summit run but the jet stream arrived\u00a0to stall their plans.<\/p>\n However, the excellent website Altitude Pakistan<\/a> reports “Ferran, Yannick & Helias are ready for summit-bid on unfinished line on North Side, whereas Kinshofer Route climbers are still to reach C2.”<\/p>\n BP is often concerned a warm-up for K2 but that grossly understates the difficultly of this\u00a026,414’\/8051m peak. About 410 people have summited.<\/p>\n For 2016 there are only a few teams based at Broad\u00a0Peak base camp even tho 79\u00a0permits were issued – many of\u00a0those were for K2 climbers hoping to\u00a0summit BP after K2. In reality many plan for this and few accomplish it.<\/p>\n The Mountain Professional team arrived at base camp on 21 June to find it all to themselves, and not to their liking:<\/p>\n It has been crazy to watch the daily influx of climbers and groups to K2, as they walk right next to our camp, but still no other team on Broad Peak except us. This is challenging for our team, since commonly in Pakistan teams band together to fix rope and we have been left to do the lions share here, since we heard at least two groups had problems getting in to Pakistan, and of course these were the ones that were most likely bringing lots of manpower and gear to contribute to fixing our route.<\/p>\n We have ordered up more rope and pitons from Skardu, in the event we are forced to be self reliant here, we hear rumors of groups coming but not sure what is the case so we press on. We were a bit early arriving so we expected to most likely fix the first part of the route but now could use some collaboration, we press on and look forward to a good C1 rotation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n But\u00a0a couple\u00a0of other teams arrived, however not as strong as the MP team wanted to see. They\u00a0were\u00a0on\u00a0their second rotation planning\u00a0on a\u00a0night at C2 or 6300 meters but when the winds picked up, they returned to BC.<\/p>\n With a sobering death to summit ratio of about 25%, K2 is the most challenging of all the Karakoram 8000ers. The second highest in the world at 28,251’\/8611m it is significantly more difficult and dangerous than Everest. This year, K2 has a record 112 permits issued for it. Historically, only 355 people\u00a0have summited K2.<\/p>\n From 1986\u00a0to 2015, there were\u00a011 years with no summits. From 2009 to 2015, there were only three\u00a0years with summits – 2011 only from the Chinese side, and 2012 and 2014 each with about 40 – 50\u00a0people\u00a0summiting – record breaking years as a result of a week of excellent and rare summit conditions. Everest went from 1974 to 2014 with summits every year – 40 straight years!<\/p>\n Weather is reported acceptable thus far with some days showing high winds but snow conditions\u00a0seem better than last year\u00a0when no one summited K2.<\/p>\n Teams are reporting\u00a0the fixed ropes have been set to C2 (22,000′) and a combined effort of Sherpas from several teams are working to fix the Black Pyramid to C3.<\/p>\n There are only a few large commercial teams but a slew of small teams consisting of a few foreigners supported by many Sherpas\u00a0and Pakistanis. This means coordination could be difficult and is\u00a0requiring the long time experienced K2 leaders like Kari Kobler to step in.<\/p>\n However it seems that the crowds and inexperience are beginning\u00a0to show on K2. \u00a0Laura \u00a0& Yuri <\/a>posted this on their Facebook page (translated by Facebook). They\u00a0are with Austrian Kari Kobler:<\/p>\n If something we talk about when we refer to the mountain, is the team work and the importance of this to get to the summit. On this occasion, it has come a lot of people at the k2, make it a bit later to go behind the expeditions as big as ours (sucking wheel, as in the cycling), but due to the difficulty of this mountain, where the spaces for the camps They are truly reduced, a lot of people had the nerve to come up with no store and just looking for some empty to get to sleep using the sleeping bag of someone else and why not, if in that store is there anything you need, then take it as an ice axe That magically disappeared out of a store of our team.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n
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Gasherbrum I\/II<\/h3>\n
Nanga Parbat<\/h3>\n
Broad Peak<\/h3>\n
K2<\/h3>\n