The seven member team from Kazakhstan, Russia and Kyrgyzstan are in Islamabad and are preparing to fly to Skardu for the 4Runner drive to the end of the road in Askole where they will being the trek to K2 Base Camp<\/p>\n
Vassiliy Pivtsov<\/a> is the expedition leader and Basil Pivtsov (Kazakhstan) is the head of the\u00a0expedition and the team captain.\u00a0Artem Brown (Russia) is \u00a0listed as the project organizer.\u00a0The rest of the team now includes:\u00a0Abildayev Novel (Russia),\u00a0Roman Abildaev (Russia),\u00a0Michael Danichkin (Kyrgyzstan),\u00a0Mikhail Danichkin (Kyrgyzstan),\u00a0Tursunali Aubakirov (Kazakhstan),\u00a0Tursunov Aubakirov (Kazakhstan),\u00a0Dmitry Ants (Kazakhstan),\u00a0Dmitry Muraviov (Kazakhstan),\u00a0Konstantin Shepelin (Russia),\u00a0Konstantin Shepelin (Russia)<\/p>\n You can follow them on Instagram<\/a> but\u00a0Russian Climb<\/a>\u00a0is the best source.<\/p>\n K2: Spanish\/Galician Team – On the road<\/strong><\/p>\n The other K2 team is lead by\u00a0Alex Txikon<\/a>\u00a0is now traveling by bus from Kathmandu to Islamabad while his Spanish teammates will fly from Madrid.<\/p>\n He will be climbing with his long time friend and partner\u00a0Felix Criado from Galicia, Spain and two additional teammates: \u00a0Polish climbers\u00a0Marek Klonowski and Pawe\u0142 Dunaj. They will have a strong team of eight Sherpas with them in support including\u00a0Nuri Sherpa, Chhepal Sherpa, Geljen Sherpa, Hallung Sherpa and Pasang Sherpa.<\/p>\n He has not announced what route they will use, Abruzzi or \u010cesen or even the East Face. \u00a0<\/strong>The pair\u00a0attempted K2 in 2013 but stopped just above Camp 2 at 6,900-meters.<\/p>\n You can follow their movements\u00a0on Alex’s\u00a0GPS tracker<\/a>, \u00a0Twitter<\/a>, \u00a0Instagram<\/a>, and Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n Daniele Nardi with British Thomas Ballard and two Pakistani team members Rehmatullah Baig and Karim Hayat are attempting a new route on Nanga Parbat. They reached Camp 1 on the mountain while the\u00a0two Pakistani mountaineers\u00a0had hoped to move up to Camp 2 but heavy snow has forced everyone back down to base camp.<\/p>\n Simone Moro and\u00a0Pemba Gyalje Sherpa are on the trek to acclimatize on Mera Peak before attempting \u00a0Manaslu via the normal route in alpine style. In more noise around when winter begins and when an expedition starts, Moro has said “the only ascent to the Manaslu during an astronomical winter , that of the Poles of 1984, could not be considered a totally winter expedition , since it began before December 21 and was already above 7,000 meters when it began the station.” source<\/a><\/p>\n American climber Lonnie Dupre,<\/a> well known for his amazing attempts to summit Denali in true winter, left for Alaska yesterday for his winter attempt on nearby Mt. Hunter.<\/p>\n Antartica expert and veteran polar guide Eric Philips added a bit more on\u00a0American Colin O\u2019Brady’s claim of a solo, unassisted, and unsupported 54-day Antarctic traverse. O\u2019Brady\u00a0pulled a 136Kg\/300lb sledge from one coast to Antartica to the South Pole then to another costal point. The total journey was 1,487km\/923 miles. He beat fellow racer, British Army Captain Lou Rudd by 2 days. Both extremely impressive.<\/p>\n However, the record part of his journey has come under scrutiny given he\u00a0traveled on the McMurdo-South Pole Highway, or the South Pole Overland Traverse Road (SPOT), a flattened trail groomed by tractors towing heavy sledges carrying personnel and supplies from McMurdo Station to the South Pole making travel on groomed ice vs the uneven and often impossible sastrugi (wind built ice formations) easier, and faster.<\/p>\n Philips posted on Facebook<\/a>:<\/p>\n To add further clarity to the discussion about Colin O’Brady’s claim on the first solo, unsupported and unassisted crossing of Antarctica, I have made up this map of solo crossings to date with some supporting narrative.<\/p>\n Other factors also have a bearing on modern polar expeditioning such as the psychological benefit of satellite phones, accessible weather forecasting and sponsor obligations, and economic and logistic pressures that encourage people to choose routes that start and\/or finish closer to logistics hubs.<\/p>\n The terms unsupported and unassisted are no longer adequate in themselves so I have refrained from using them as labels.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Kami Rita Sherpa<\/strong> at age 48 holds the record for most Everest summits at 22. He says he wants to continue climbing for the next 6 years. If he summits each year, that would put him at 28 Everest summits. source<\/a>\u00a0He used to work for foreign guide services but landed a lucrative contract with Seven Summits Treks to climb with them.<\/p>\n And finally the young Sherpa who lost both set of fingers to frostbite while guiding a Pakistani client<\/a>, Col Abdul Jabbar Bhatti\u00a0<\/a>,\u00a0<\/span>on Everest in spring 2017 has returned to Nepal. In an ironic move, he has agreed to take a job with the very company, Seven Summits Treks<\/a>, \u00a0that sent him in harms ways, very unprepared according to Sange Sherpa<\/strong><\/a> himself. Sange spent most of the last year undergoing reconstructive surgery by world-class doctors in Vail, Colorado due to the generosity of mostly US donors to cover his living and medical expenses and reportedly none from SST or Col Abdul Jabbar Bhatti<\/span>. Best wishes in his new career.<\/p>\n Best of luck to all this winter.<\/p>\n Climb On! The winter 8000-meter teams are all arriving or are already acclimating towards their objectives. Remember this will be a long effort, especially […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":32064,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Winter 8000m teams are moving steadily towards their objectives of K2, Nanga parbat and Manaslu. Kami Rita Sherpa wants to reach 28 Everest summits before retiring, he has 22 now","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":[7,422,527],"tags":[448,528,51,237],"class_list":["post-32062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climbing-news","category-k2","category-k2-2019-coverage","tag-everest","tag-k2-2019-coverage","tag-manaslu-summit","tag-nanga-parbat"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Eric-Philips.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32062","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=32062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/k_2GUrUQ.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nWinter\u00a0Nanga Parbat – Poor Weather<\/h3>\n
Winter Manaslu – On Trek<\/h3>\n
Winter Alaska – Arriving Alaska<\/h3>\n
An Antartica “Unassisted” Record?<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Eric-Philips-640x353.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nOther News<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\nAlan
\nMemories are Everything<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"