![\"K2](\"http:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/k2routes-640x424.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"K2](\"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/IMG_2015-300x225.jpg\")
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<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t![\"Black](\"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/AlanK25-300x225.jpg\")
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<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t![\"Alan](\"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/20140803-174532-63932462-300x225.jpg\")
<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\tThere have been few winter attempts due to the difficult and financing involved.<\/p>\n
- \n
- 1980 Reconnaissance: Pol Andrzej Zawada and Canadian-resident Polish national Jaques Olek<\/li>\n
- 1987\/88 Attempt: 13 Poles, 7 Canadians and 4 Brits \/ made to Camp 3<\/li>\n
- 2002\/03 Attempt: 14 climbers from Poland, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Georgia \/ made Camp 4<\/li>\n
- 2011\/12 Attempt: 9 climbers from Russia \/ made Camp 2<\/li>\n
- 2014\/15 Near Attempt: Denis Urubko and team lost permit<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
First K2 Winter Expedition 1987-88<\/b>
\nAn international team of 13 Poles, 7 Canadians and 4 Brits made the first attempt on K2 via Abruzzi Ridge. As usual the low camps were set up but progress stalled at the higher altitudes. It wasn’t until March 2 that Camp 3 was established at 7300 meters. Then high winds began to take its toll and members experienced frostbite and soon the entire effort was cancelled.<\/p>\nTo amplify the weather concerns, this expedition only had 10 days of \u2018good\u2019\u00a0weather in the\u00a0three months they spent at Base Camp.<\/p>\n
International Expedition 2002-03<\/b>
\nThe winter of 2002\/3, Polish alpinist legend Krzysztof Wielicki lead a small team of four ember from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Georgia. They arrived in mid December planning to climb via the North Ridge. The lower camps were established in short order and by January 20 they had reached 6750m.<\/p>\nBut discourse within the team caused the Easter European members to leave except for\u00a0Kazakh climber Denis Urubko. They went on to reach Camp 4 at 7650m in mid February and planned a summit attempt on February 21st but one member was hit with cerebral edema and the attempt, and soon, the entire expedition, was called off.<\/p>\n
When the expedition ended on February 28, 2003 Krzysztof Wielicki declared \u201cThe mission of ascending the peak has not ended, but rather been suspended. I will not give any dates, but I assure you that I will return to K2. One does not combat a mountain, one struggles against adversities. These adversities include snow, hurricane winds, and exhaustion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Russian Attempt 2011-12<\/b>
\nThe most recent winter attempt was by a large and strong Russian team on the Abruzzi Ridge route in winter 2011-12. The team consisted of nine climbers. They began at the end of December and quickly established Camps 1 and 2 at 6050m and 6350m respectively. By January 25, they had reached 7000m.<\/p>\nHigh winds hit the mountain in early February and one member,\u00a0Vitaly Gorelik, suffered from frostbite and pneumonia. The poor weather prevented an evacuation and Vitaly died in BC on February 6th. At that point the entire expedition was cancelled.<\/p>\n
In 2014\/15\u00a0Denis Urubko planned an expedition from the North side but politics with China stopped the permit process.<\/p>\n
2017\/18?<\/h3>\n
It will be fascinating to watch this year’s effort. K2 has demonstrated very strange weather the last few years with warmer than expected conditions and unusual snow. It remains to be seen what the Poles will experience over the next few months.<\/p>\n
But one thing we know for sure, if it can be done, this team has an excellent chance.<\/p>\n
They arrive in Pakistan just after Christmas, December 25, 2017, so I don’t expect them to begin establishing the route until January 10 or later.<\/p>\n
Climb On!
\nAlan
\nMemories Are Everything<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After multiple attempts to summit K2 in winter, a Polish team is finalizing their plans to attempt the last 8000er not summited […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":21197,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"After multiple unsuccessful attempts to summit K2 in winter, a Polish team is finalizing their plans and packing preparing to arrive in Pakistan after Christmas.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[7,422,484],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climbing-news","category-k2","category-k2-2017-coverage"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/karakorum_2006_777.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28261","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=28261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}