{"id":37690,"date":"2020-12-30T08:24:27","date_gmt":"2020-12-30T15:24:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/?p=37690"},"modified":"2020-12-30T12:21:03","modified_gmt":"2020-12-30T19:21:03","slug":"winter-k2-update-early-season-overview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/2020\/12\/30\/winter-k2-update-early-season-overview\/","title":{"rendered":"Winter K2 Update: Early Season Overview"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today was the last day of predicted winds low-enough to climb high on K2 safely. The large Seven Summits Treks team is also there and resting before starting their first rotation. With a few weeks now under our harness, let’s step back and see where things stand.<\/p>\n

Early Season Overview<\/h3>\n

The ropes are set to 7,000-meters at the top of the Black Pyramid with cooperation between Mingma G and Nirmal Purja. Three teams have over-nighted at Camp 2 around 20,000-feet or 6700-meters, so relatively, not all that high. Thus there is still a lot of mountain to fix and climb before the summit. Overall, it’s about what you’d expect entering January.<\/p>\n

Mingma G seems highly organized and, with his small three-person team, got to C2 first while fixing the section between C1 and C2. Nirmal Purja shot out of the gate fast, but even with his seven-member team in support, they commented on the load weight and the cold. Snorri and Pakistani Muhammad Ali Sadpara and his son Sajid were first at base camp, made a quick run to fix the lines to Camp 1, and then took a very long break back at Base Camp before returning to Camp 2.<\/p>\n

If we are learning anything, it’s obvious: it’s cold, windy, and there is a lot of rockfall on the Abruzzi Spur – all 100% expected.\u00a0As I said, we have a long way to go. The fixed-line is now set through the Black Pyramid, significant progress. Camp 3 needs to be established. This camp is probably the most avalanche-prone part of the route. Setting aside fixing the line to High Camp, the next big challenge will be climbing through the Bottleneck, the Traverse then to the summit. All of this will take weather windows of three to five days; otherwise, the teams will be climbing in unacceptable windchills nearing -100F. Welcome to winter.<\/p>\n

With the massive Seven Summits Team finally, at Base Camp, they might be able to offload some of the work by sharing the rope fixing responsibility above Camp 2. I’ve always said, the highest chances of seeing a summit this winter will come if all the four teams work together.<\/p>\n

So, windchill and teamwork notwithstanding, as usual on K2 in the winter, it comes down to the weather, wind specifically. They have enjoyed a fantastic stretch of the right conditions thus far, but the forecast looks patchy, short periods of low winds followed by gale-force conditions. This weather pattern makes climbing any 8000-meter peak in the winter challenging – lack of consistency and predictability.<\/p>\n

By the way, there are still climbers who have not been able to get to Pakistan due to travel shutdowns from the UK. Hopefully, they can arrive before it’s too late.<\/p>\n

\"K2
K2 Abruzzi Route Map<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mingma G Puts Ropes to 7000m<\/h3>\n

Mingma Gyalje Sherpa<\/a> is pushing hard and was the first team to reach Camp 2. He posted this late Tuesday that his team and Nirmal Purja plus Mingma Teni put the fixed rope to 7000-meter, roughly at the top of the Black Pyramid:<\/p>\n

Today we fixed the line to the ice section just below the camp3. We 3 were joined by Nirmal Purja dai n Mingma Tenzi dai at around 7000m.Thanks to Nepalese brother n Nepalese heart. Thanks Dawa dai for great communication.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m told directly that they\u00a0are back to Camp 2 and tomorrow they will come down to basecamp and will take a few day’s rest.<\/p>\n

Nim’s at C2<\/h3>\n

Nirmal Purja<\/a>\u00a0plus one of his Sherpa teammates helped Mingma to put in fixed lines to 7000-meters.<\/p>\n

Snorri\u00a0at C2<\/h3>\n
John Snorri Sigurjonsson<\/a> with Muhammad Ali Sadpara<\/a> and his son Sajid Ali continues their acclimatization, now are back at base camp.<\/div>\n

Seven Summits Treks Commercial<\/h3>\n

Seven Summits Trek’s<\/a>\u00a0massive commercial team arrived at K2 Base Camp. Dawa made a perplexing post: “All set up done, with pre-acclimatization, on second weather window plaining to send fixing sherpa for summit push, along with full acclimatize and fit set members.” Several members of their “team” posted that they were going higher. It seems to be more of a collection of individuals than a cohesive team, which is how SST usually runs their expeditions. For a winter K2 effort, it feels very dangerous. Historically, “disappearance” is the first reason listed for death on K2.<\/p>\n

Climb On!
\nAlan
\nMemories are Everything<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today was the last day of predicted winds low-enough to climb high. Mingma and Nirmal Purja put the fixed ropes to 7000-meters, top of the Black Pyramid. With a few weeks passed, let’s see where things stand<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":24126,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Today was the last day of predicted low winds. Mingma and Nirmal Purja put the fixed ropes to 7000-meters, Black Pyramid top. With a few weeks passed, let's see where things stand","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":[7,422,562,597],"tags":[42,598,487,602],"class_list":["post-37690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climbing-news","category-k2","category-k2-2020-coverage","category-k2-winter","tag-k2","tag-k2-winter","tag-mingma-gyalje-sherpa","tag-Nimral-purja"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/13680830_635576659953830_378056688920321186_n-e1469288667223.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37690","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=37690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}