K2 2018 Summer Season Coverage: Weekend Update 30 June – SNOW!
It’s been a difficult week in Pakistan’s Karakoram Mountain range. Heavy snow brought most teams to a complete halt forcing them to stay at base camp. Over a foot was reported at some camps. With this amount of heavy snow, the smart move is to wait for it to settle and that takes days for […]
K2 2018 Summer Season Coverage: Snow Stalls Progress
The weather around the Karakoram peaks is slowing and even stopping progress this week. Meanwhile some teams are not at Base Camp yet. Broad Peak Delays Furtenbach Adventures reports in with big snow stalling progress. They are a bit nervous because they also want to get K2. When this scenario occurs, often teams will abandon […]
K2 2018 Summer Season Coverage
The weather around the Karakoram peaks are making the early teams work hard to establish low camps. Other teams continue their treks to base camps. Big Picture It is now late June so the weather can still be quite extreme (as if it never isn’t!) Make no mistake, the weather is the biggest challenge standing […]
K2 2018 Summer Season: Weekend Update 22 June
Late June continues on schedule in Northern Pakistan but the weather is causing some delays. Teams are arriving at K2’s base camp and climbing has begun there and on Nanga Parbat and other 8000ers Trekking! Garett Madison called me from Skardu saying their team is doing well and ready to begin the 8 or so […]
K2 2018 Summer Season Coverage: Weekend Update 17 June – Japanese at K2
The summer K2 season is well underway with teams at base camp or making the trek up the Baltoro. And the other big Karakoram peaks are also welcoming climbers to base camps and even higher. Challenge to Base Camp There are multiple challenges to even getting to the Karakoram, starting with arriving in Islamabad. The […]
K2 2018 Summer Season Coverage: Teams at Base Camp
Teams are arriving at K2 Base Camp so look for climbing to begin soon. Japanese Arrive Akira Oyabe and his 10 member team from Japan have arrived at K2 Base Camp. They are having satellite problems but did get a short update out: 6/10: BC (5000 M) 6/11: Set up a tent on ABC (5250 […]
K2 2018 Summer Season Coverage
Welcome to my annual coverage of the 2018 K2 summer climbing season. I will be reporting from my home in Colorado this year based on my personal experience of our successful 2014 K2 summit and covering the action the last three years. I try to report on K2 in the same style as my annual […]
K2 Team Ends Winter Expedition
The Winter Polish K2 team ended their effort after K2 had seen over 80cm/31 inches of new snow that buried ropes and destroyed high camps. The climbing community is now 0 for 4 with attempts to summit K2 in the winter since 1987/88. See this post for full background on the K2 and Everest expeditions and […]
The Definition of Winter for K2 and Everest Climbs
With the drama dissipating from K2, the Polish team remains at base camp waiting for better weather. Everest is now officially over but the debate about when winter ends, will continue forever. See this post for full background on the K2 and Everest expeditions and the history of winter attempts on the highest two mountains […]
K2 Team Focuses on the Summit. Another Everest Attempt?
Denis Urubko remains at base camp along with the drama. Now that he is off the team, the remaining climbers are focusing on a potential summit push around mid March. Alex Txikon suggested he ended his winter Everest attempt with his permit expiring on 28 February but today said maybe not! See this post for […]