{"id":31281,"date":"2018-07-21T22:41:18","date_gmt":"2018-07-22T04:41:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/?p=31281"},"modified":"2018-07-21T22:41:18","modified_gmt":"2018-07-22T04:41:18","slug":"k2-2018-summer-coverage-more-k2-summits-weather-moving-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/2018\/07\/21\/k2-2018-summer-coverage-more-k2-summits-weather-moving-in\/","title":{"rendered":"K2 2018 Summer Coverage: More K2 Summits – Weather moving In"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following a near record day of K2 summits, more teams stood on top of K2 on Sunday July 22nd<\/sup>, 2018. Big weather is forecasted to move in on Tuesday thru Thursday so now is the time to push for the summit of K2. I’ll update this post as new information becomes available over the next 12 hours.<\/p>\n

Masherbrum Expedition<\/a>\u00a0providing some support for Madison<\/a> noted: “11 members, 9 Sherpas and 2 Pakistani highporters summit K2 on 22 July.” Before leaving, Garrett told me he had, \u00a0“… a team of 10 clients, 2 guides plus myself (Geoff Schellens and Robert Smith), 11 sherpas, and 5 Pakistani HAPs”<\/p>\n

The Japanese team posted this update:<\/p>\n

Japanese K2 expedition, Summit push:\u00a0Six members (Mr. Higashiyama, Mr. Taguchi, Mr. Watanabe, Mr. Iizawa, Mr. Yusa, Ms.Hayashi ) and two HAPs left C4 last night for summit push. \u00a0Today(7\/22), at 4:00 local time, Mr. Higashiyama reached Bottle Neck(8200m). \u00a0Two members (Mr. Oyabe, Mr. Shirakura) decided not to pursue the summit push, due to health condition.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of note yesterday\u00a0Noel Hanna<\/a>\u00a0with Seven Summits Treks and today\u00a0Jason Black<\/a>\u00a0with Madison became the second and third Irish to summit after the tragic story of my friend Get McDonald in 20o8. Well done to both.<\/p>\n

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More to Come!<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n

Furtenbach Adventures<\/a>\u00a0has two logistics-only members pushing the schedule to avoid potential weather moving in. Fredrik Str\u00e4ng<\/a>\u00a0and David Roeske<\/a>\u00a0went on their own aiming to skip camps to make the K2 summits as quickly as possible. \u00a0K2 skier Andrzej Bargiel<\/a>\u00a0is on his push, you can follow at his tracker page\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Why So Many Summits?<\/h3>\n

I made the case a few years ago that K2 will never be Everest and I stand by that even with the good summit numbers over the last two days. Everest is all about altitude while K2 is all about altitude AND climbing. Remember that Everest saw close to 700 summits this Spring while K2 may see around 50.<\/p>\n

What we are seeing in 2018 is similar to what I personally experienced in 2014 – good weather and good support. \u00a0As I’ve noted in previous post, Seven Summits Treks has taken their high volume Everest model and exported it to Pakistan. By that I mean a support ratio of 2 to 1 for support to members all climbing on a generous flow of supplemental oxygen. Now, this is not to take way from their accomplishment because summiting K2 is damned hard – and almost impossible without these support systems as evidenced with the approximately 400 summits and 84 deaths.<\/p>\n

A view from the air<\/h3>\n

Bilal Munir Sheik<\/a>\u00a0sent me this video taken from Pakistani Air PK451 as it took a deviation to fly by K2 on July 17, 2018. Look for K2 starting at 5:00 into the clip and Gasherbrum at 7:10<\/p>\n