{"id":39935,"date":"2021-08-03T16:07:30","date_gmt":"2021-08-03T22:07:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/?p=39935"},"modified":"2021-08-04T17:19:04","modified_gmt":"2021-08-04T23:19:04","slug":"k2-2021-summer-coverage-season-wrap-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/2021\/08\/03\/k2-2021-summer-coverage-season-wrap-up\/","title":{"rendered":"K2 2021 Summer Coverage: Season Wrap-Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

The summer Karakorum season is over, well, I think so. There are always a few surprises. The 48 summits on K2 were close but not a record. 2018 saw a record with 62 total summits, followed by 2004 with an estimated 51. This season saw two deaths, one on a new route on K2 and one on Broad Peak. Overall there were around 100 summits in the Karakorum.<\/span><\/p>\n

With COVID lurking, the climbing season in the Karakoram was not as large as everyone hoped. Permits issued this summer were for 75 support climbers with 128 foreigners. Many BP climbers were also on K2, so there are duplicates; thus, the total is less than 203, probably around 185. permits for the various peaks, including the four 8000ers: K2, Broad Peak, Nanga Parbat, Gasherbrum I, and Gasherbrum II. Overall there were around 90 to 100 total summits across all the 8000ers, with none on Nanga.<\/span><\/p>\n

As usual in the Karakorum, the weather played a role this summer. Conditions began well, but soon a steady mix of snow and wind halted progress allowing only a few sporadic days where teams tried to thread the needle. It wasn’t until late July that a long enough window emerged that allowed climber to ascend and descend K2 safely.<\/span><\/p>\n

A new factor this season was the new 4G cell tower recently installed in Concordia. Even with sporadic outages due to weather and power, teams were able to send updates to social media and home, plus I was able to do live\u00a0<\/span>Zoom<\/span><\/a>\u00a0interviews directly from Base Camp! Now on to who did what.<\/span><\/p>\n

K2 (48 summits)<\/h3>\n

Let’s start this run-down with a big shout-out to two climbers, Niels Jespers and Hugo Ayaviri, who summited both Broad Peak and K2 within nine days without using supplemental oxygen. As usual, the big teams bought, brought, and fixed the ropes on both Broad Peak and K2 while it was up to the smaller teams on the other peaks.<\/p>\n

The big teams on the Abruzzi Spur<\/strong> had a lot of success.\u00a0Madison Mountaineering<\/a>\u00a0had 21 people on top: 9 members, 9 Sherpas, and 3 Pakistani climbers. Part of Madison’s team were British guides\u00a0Kenton Cool<\/a>\u00a0and Jon Gupta<\/a>\u00a0who summited with their individual clients.<\/p>\n

Mashabrum Expeditions Treks & Tours<\/a>\u00a0saw three summits lead by Sajid Ali Sadpara<\/a><\/span>, son of Muhammad Ali Sadpara who died on February 5, 2021, along with teammates\u00a0John Snorri, and Juan Pablo Mohr Prieto. Their bodies were found by Madison’s Sherpas while fixing ropes near the bottleneck and Alpomania owner Valentyn Sypavin. More on this in a moment.<\/p>\n

Nepal’s Pioneer Adventure<\/a>, the only other team that brought Shepras over from Nepal along with Madison, supported the Ukrainian-Nepalese K2 Expedition 2021<\/a>\u00a0of three Ukrainians and three\u00a0Sherpas plus a separate team from Ukraine, Alpomania<\/a> supported by six Sherpas. They put a total of 19 climbers on the summit. Also, Hushe welfare mountaineering and climbing school<\/a>, saw seven summits on K2, three on Broad, and two on GII spread across several teams.<\/p>\n

The other large team, Pakistani operator Karakorum Expeditions<\/a>\u00a0lead by Mirza Ali\u2019s had eleven clients on K2 and Broad Peak supported by 22 Pakistani climbers plus European mountain guides Austrian Stephan Keck<\/a> and Spaniard Jordi Tosas<\/a>\u00a0who assisted the five-person Pakistani rope team. They\u00a0made a large effort on Broad Peak and their team fixed the ropes to the summit, but lost their momentum on K2 and ended the effort in mid-climb. Keck paraglided off Broad from 6600-meters!<\/div>\n
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Tragically, Scottish climbing legend Rick Allen died<\/strong> while attempting a new route on K2’s Southeast Face<\/strong> along with Keck and Tosas. It was reported he was caught in an avalanche. His body was recovered\u00a0from the glacier near ABC. His teammates were rescued by a Pakistani long-line helicopter.<\/div>\n
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Graham Zimmerman<\/a> and Ian Welsted<\/a>\u00a0gave the West Ridge<\/strong> a strong attempt but snow and climbing conditions conspired to stop them around 7,000-meters. They had acclimatized on Broad Peak also to 7,000-meters before heading over to K2. They were the only team on that route this year.<\/div>\n

Broad Peak (14 summits)<\/h3>\n

Perhaps the most drama of the season occurred on Broad Peak, which mistakenly is often advertised as an “easy” 8000er. It’s become common to have many small, independent teams on Broad while some large teams like to acclimatize there before going to K2. This year showed the issue with this model. There were three serious summit waves but only one succeeded, and that was marked with rescues and death.<\/p>\n

Strong climbing veterans Don Bowie<\/a>\u00a0and Lotta Hintsa<\/a>\u00a0broke trail early on in the season but deep snow conditions stopped their progress. When a window appeared, all the other teams jumped in apparently agreeing to share the work. However, people got sick due to lack of simple hygiene in the high camps, others choose to stay in their tents and not contribute as promised but three climbers from Mirza Ali<\/a>‘s\u00a0Karakorum Expeditions,<\/a> Jalal Uddin,\u00a0Eid Muhammad, and\u00a0Faryad Karim got the rope to the summit and the rest followed.<\/p>\n

Karakorum Expeditions<\/a>\u2018 Mirza Ali<\/a> gave this update on the lack of teamwork when it got difficult on Broad Peak thus ending this first summit push.<\/p>\n

So our boys ploughing through deep snow fixing ropes just below the V for almost 12hours retreated to camp 3, there was no support, no piece of ropes from any other team except the Korean team who fixed 300meters above camp 3, and some 200 meters fixed by lotta and don @karakorumexpeditions reorganised at camp 3 and going for the summit tonight! The first team will open the V and then to summit, second-team with clients! ! The fixing team and clients are on the move toward the summit! Please keep your fingers crossed<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The next attempt included many teams plus a Korean team lead by Kim Hong-bin who\u00a0summited but tragedy struck on the descent. The details are getting clearer but it began with a Russian climber, Anastasia Runova, falling onto a snow ledge on the Chinese side of Broad Peak.<\/p>\n

The next event was Mr. Kim falling onto the same ledge. Most likely both climbers mistakenly took old ropes down the 70-degree Chinese Face of Broad Peak instead of retracing their steps back to the Pakistani side. In spite of a valiant effort by Russian Vitaly Lazo<\/span><\/a><\/strong>\u00a0to save him, Mr. Kim died<\/strong> when his jumar reportedly slipped off the icy rope and he fell down the sheer icy walls. Kim had lost all ten fingers to frostbite in 1991 while climbing Denali. Broad Peak was the last of his 8000ers. Vitaly has an excellent write up of the events at this link<\/a><\/p>\n

Near the end of July, 20 climbers made one last push for Broad Peak but deep, unstable snow stopped them.<\/p>\n

Gasherbrum I (4 summits) and Gasherbrum II (24 summit)<\/h3>\n

The Gasherbrums saw mixed success with a lot of ambition. Marco Confortola<\/span><\/a>, along with fellow Italian Mario Vielmo with Pakistanis Hassan Jan and Fida Ashur, made a strong effort on GI but in the end, the snow was too unstable for them to be safe. An Italian team lead by <\/span>Mario Vielmo<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0did put four climbers on GI’s summit.\u00a0<\/span>On GII, The French team of Boris Langenstein, Tiphaine Duperier, Aur\u00e9lia Lanoe, and Guillaume Pierre summited and skied down to Camp 1.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Nanga Parbt (no summits)<\/h3>\n

Over on Nanga Parbat, a Spanish team led by Manuel Gonzalez<\/a>\u00a0wanted to repeat Reinhold Messner’s climb of the Diamir Face but found the goal a bit too ambitious. They\u00a0canceled the expedition due to weather and slow progress after reaching C1 at 5500-meters.<\/p>\n

Records<\/h3>\n

These days there are always climbers who are the first from their country, gender, heritage, or something claiming records. Here are a few of them, (I’m sure there are more so please leave a comment):<\/p>\n