The Big Picture<\/h3>\n
Climbing these peaks in the winter is all about weather, specifically cold and wind, wind, wind. Both the K2 and Everest teams are coping with the cold but when the wind gusts over 40mph\/65kph it gets virtually impossible. All the climbers have the skills, are strong and experienced so their capabilities are not in question. But even the strongest person cannot withstand 100mph wind gusts.<\/p>\n
On Everest the Jet-stream sits on the summit for most of the year only relenting in late May and again in early October. Most summit pushes require a minimum of four days from base camp. On Everest, an extremely aggressive schedule would breakout like this:<\/p>\n
- \n
- EBC – C2 at\u00a021,000’\/6400m<\/li>\n
- C2 – C3 at 23,500’\/7162m \u00a0or South Col at\u00a026,300’\/8016m<\/li>\n
- Summit Bid at\u00a029,035′ \/ 8850m<\/li>\n
- Back to C2<\/li>\n
- Back to EBC<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
They could climb in high winds through the Icefall but probably not above C3 around 23,500’\/7162m. They did have fixed ropes almost to the South Col, but that was a couple of weeks ago and they could be buried under new snow or frozen in since then.<\/p>\n
On K2, it is a similar schedule. They have reached C2 at 22,110’\/6700m\u00a0but have no ropes through the Black Pyramid or above. With the icy conditions, I would assume they want to put the ropes in before or during a summit push. They have found old ropes but it is exhausting and time consuming to chop them out of the ice. Their schedule might be:<\/p>\n
- \n
- K2BC – C2 at\u00a022,110’\/6700m<\/li>\n
- C2 – C4 at\u00a025,080’\/7600m<\/li>\n
- Summit Bid at\u00a028,251’\/8611m<\/li>\n
- Back to C2<\/li>\n
- Back to K2BC<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Winter K2 – Pushing Hard<\/h3>\n
The Polish team<\/a>\u00a0continues to push, even in high winds knowing the clock is ticking.\u00a0Marek Chmielarski and Artur Ma\u0142ek reached Camp 1 and Saturday, 17 February 2018, \u00a0Janusz Go\u0142\u0105b, Maciej Bedrejczuk, Denis Urubko and Adam Bielecki (who was injured by rockfall, is returning to the climb) will leave K2BC. This is the most climbers they have had on K2 this season suggesting they are pushing hard to acclimatize in anticipation of a summit window. There does appear to be reasonable winds up to the 8,000-meter level for the next week.<\/p>\n
![\"Denis](\"http:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Denis-Urubko-chopping-out-old-rope-on-K2-courtesy-of--320x480.jpg\")
<\/a>Denis Urubko chopping out old rope on K2 courtesy of russianClimb.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Rafa\u0142 Fronia, who had his arm broken by rockfall, is back home in Poland and did a radio<\/a> interview. The money quote was :<\/p>\n
If people are acclimatized and will weather window, the chance is one hundred percent. In contrast, if you run any factor, because we do not know what will happen, well, the chances are zero. This is a good team of good people who can climb and they will come up on this, but under some circumstances.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Thanks to Altitude Pakistan<\/a>, this is a brief summary of the previous attempts:<\/p>\n
During the first winter attempt in 1987\/88,\u00a0\u00a0the team noted that they only had 10 days of good weather during their three months expedition.\u00a0Krzysztof Wielicki, the leader today, was a climber on that expedition. They didn’t reach\u00a0C3 on the Abruzzi until March 6th and then harsh winds stopped them almost killing two of the climbers with severe frostbite.<\/p>\n
The next attempt in 2002\/3 was lead by\u00a0Wielicki and attempted the North Pillar. It was a team of climbers from Poland,\u00a0Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Georgia – they didn’t get along.\u00a0Denis Urubko was also on this effort and stayed with the team after others left. Marcin\u00a0Kaczkan and Urubko were the only climbers to attempt the summit on 25 February but Kaczkan developed HACE and they abandoned the attempt and the expedition.<\/p>\n
In 2010\/11 a Russian team reached 7,000-meters at the end of January by the Abruzzi but again high winds forced a retreat, then one member died at base camp and the effort was called-off.<\/p>\n
So, as you can see these winter attempts are a huge gamble, complete with deaths. They rush to establish the route during brief periods of suitable weather but spend most of their time waiting at base camp. When they do go for the summit, it has been the winds and illness that have stopped them. Of course both\u00a0Urubko and\u00a0Wielicki know this well as they were there.<\/p>\n
You can follow them directly on their website<\/a>, Facebook<\/a>, and SPOT<\/a> tracker<\/p>\n
Winter Everest – There is Hope!<\/h3>\n
Alex Txikon<\/a> and team must be thinking this is a scene out of the movie Groundhog Day. Everyday they wake hoping for a good weather report and each day, the report is wind up high. \u00a0However, the computer models show a lessening at all attitudes starting next Tuesday. Given the previous discussion on needing 4-5 days, it’s feasible to see them making a summit bid late next week around 22\/23 February. This would have them leaving base camp on Monday or Tuesday.<\/p>\n
A bit of trivia, the latest winter summit of Everest was on February 17, 1979 by the current K2 team leader,\u00a0Krzysztof Wielicki. Fellow Polish climber Leszek Cichy also summited that day. Another trivia, there has never been a winter summit of Everest from the Chinese side.<\/p>\n
![\"Alex](\"http:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Alex-Txiko-at-EBC-Winter-2017-8-640x360.jpg\")
<\/a>Alex Txikon at EBC Winter 2017-8<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n You can follow their movements\u00a0on Alex’s\u00a0GPS tracker<\/a>, \u00a0Twitter<\/a>, \u00a0Instagram<\/a>, and Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Climb On!
\nAlan
\nMemories are Everything<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With about one month to go before the end of winter, it may be time to wonder if either team will make […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":28863,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Winter ends on 20 March - a month away. The K2 team is pushing hard and the Everest group patiently waits for good weather. Maybe a chance late next week?","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":[7,147,494,422,500],"tags":[432,448,42],"class_list":["post-29038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climbing-news","category-everest","category-everest-2018-coverage","category-k2","category-k2-2018-coverage","tag-climbing-news","tag-everest","tag-k2"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/27500568_1775676082477821_5451140953384408671_o.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29038","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=29038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}