K2 2019 Summer Season Coverage – Summits in the Karakorum, K2 Next
The weather on K2 continues to behave and looks good well into next week. This is quite unusual and the teams are embracing it fully. Meanwhile there are multiple summits on the Gasherbrum and Broad Peak. Thus far it’s a good year in the Karakorum. Big Picture The summit schedules for K2 are coming into focus with Wednesday, July 17, 2019 being the key date with climbers leaving their high camps on Tuesday around 10 pm. Teams on both routes, the Česen and Abruzzi are leaving base camp this weekend. Ropes are set to the respective Camp 4 on both routes and Seven Summits Treks’ Sherpa are expected, as they have for the past few years, except in 2017 when Imagine Nepal took the role, to take the lead on finishing the route to the summit. Of note, there are two different Camp 4 locations this year but the route still merges below the Bottleneck thus coordination will be required to minimize delays. Furtenbach climber Eduard Ulysses gave his usual solid update noting the locations: Camp 4 on the Cesen route and Camp 4 on the Abruzzi route are not the same: While Camp 4 on the Cesen route is located directly on the shoulder, Camp 4 of the Abruzzi route is located about one hour walk below. Reason for this seems to be the existence of some seracs below the shoulder on the Abruzzi route, so the Camp was moved from its original location and now involves a somewhat meandering route. This also means a little bit longer summit night for the people on Abruzzi route. Abruzzi and Cesen route meet a little bit above Camp 4 on the Cesen route Madison’s team will leave the day after the rest staying true to Garrett’s successful formula. Look for multiple summit days later this week starting Wednesday – assuming the weather plays no tricks! Finally on the conditions near the summit Eduard Ulysses again gives a nice overview: Overall conditions seem to be good and the Sherpas are quite optimist which is reassuring. The trail seems to be good on both routes, Abruzzi and Cesen. The seracs at bottleneck also seem to be a little bit smaller than in the years before and the passage through the bottleneck will hopefully be a little bit faster than usual as ice seems to have melted away. I am glad to hear that as the seracs at the bottleneck are still super-menacing and dangerous, back home in the alps one would never accept such a dangerous path under seracs, being exposed for several hours – but alas, here we do not have much choice…(I hear that one team wants to explore a little detour around the bottleneck (potential „Wiessner“ variant) but I do not want to say more, we will see if there is a chance to do this variant – good luck!) Weissner Variant 1939 and Never Again A word on the “Weissner Variant.” It’s named for the famed German climber who emigrated to the US in 1929. He lead the second American expedition to K2. It was fraught with issues and ended up with only Weisner and Pasang Dawa Lama attempting the summit. The couloir, later named the “Bottleneck,” seemed unclimbed to Weissner with its ever-steeping ice and snow and with the high ice serac looming above, so Wiessner, more comfortable on rock, choose to go to the climbers left of the Bottleneck. It was 1,500-feet of dangerous climbing with overhangs, veriglass and steep technical rock. At 27,500-feet, they had almost made it when Pasang Dawa Lama called the effort off as the sun was setting fearing the evil spirits hovered over the summit at night. A couple of days later they climbed via the Bottleneck after Weismann had inspected it during their perilous rock climb and deemed it not as bad was they feared. In any event, they still stopped short the summit making for a disappointing attempt on K2. The “Weissner Variant” has never been repeated. In 2014, we chose to go to the climbers right of the traditional Bottleneck for similarly reason of Weissner. Honestly, I don’t think it was that much easier or less dangerous that the Bottleneck but it was clearly not the same difficulty as the Weissner Variant. K2- Česen Adrian Ballinger, Carla Perez and Ecuadoran Topo Mena just spent 6 days up high on the Česen as they are preparing their bodies for a no O’s summit attempt later in July after another acclimatization rotation. In a testament to the difficulty of K2, AB posted: While most of our acclimatization rotation went like clockwork, our fifth night, at 22500 feet/6900 meters, scared us. We were alone in Camp 3. It was too warm, the air was thick, the barometer on my @favreleuba Bivouac 9000 kept dropping, and every hour the snowfall rates kept increasing. By 2am, the stress in our little tent was overwhelming, and we pulled the plug. Packed up, slammed a coffee, and bailed. Look close, and you can see @estebantopomena finishing the descent of the scariest of the slopes. A perfect avalanche angle, the track and ropes were gone under fresh snow and wind transported snow. As I descended, on rappel, pulling the rope out of the slab, cracks shot away and small pockets pulled out. The whole face wasn’t going to rip (I don’t think
K2 2019 Summer Season Coverage – Climbers on the Move in Good Weather
The weather on K2 is revealing a kind side for a change. Low winds, little snow and acceptable temperatures have dominated the conditions for the past 10 days. How long this will last is anyone’s guess but for now, no one is complaining. Big Picture There is talk about a lot of snow above Camp 4 and it’s giving the climbers serious pause. Eduard Ulysses gave his usual solid update noting the conditions: On Abruzzi route, the ropes are fixed up to Camp 4, on Cesen route the ropes end about 500m below Camp 4 it seems. Here it will probably take some days until the Sherpas can continue. So at the moment there is some tendency we will go up via Abruzzi route instead of Cesen (as originally expected) as we can hope here to advance faster. But then again, we need to wait for the ropes to be fixed from Camp 4 to the summit, or at least we need support for the tracing. It seems that often there is a lot of snow above the Bottleneck and it is pretty much impossible for a small team to do the tracing on their own as we would get stuck and might have to turn around. That means that we now have to wait a bit to see when the rope fixing / tracing continues and how we can best fit in as a small team with the big teams. As most of us want to go without supplemental oxygen we have to be careful not to get stuck behind the rope fixing team or slower people as this is usually a no-go without supplemental oxygen, especially during the night. So we still have to figure out our speedboat-strategy. I will keep you posted! But for now quite surely we will not start before the week-end, if at all. And Mike Horn on the Abruzzi noted the snow conditions as well: Here is another pic that I took from camp 3, looking up towards the summit of K2. Here we can see the shoulder we need to overcome on our way to the top of the mountain. The shoulder is about 600m above our tent, at 8000m. . Making our way over the shoulder will be one of our biggest obstacles on this expedition thus far. As you can see, there is a lot of snow, making progress very difficult and the risk of avalanches very high. It will be crucial for us to make the right call at the right time when we approach this step. . So far, we are very happy with our progress, but we are aware that the bigger challenges are yet to come. As we make our way higher, the oxygen level continues to decrease, and the dangers unavoidably increase, resulting in slower and more steady progress. With every extra meter gained in altitude, more effort needs to be invested for shorter distances. But we won’t be shied by these difficulties, on the contrary, we are here to overcome them, while always being as careful as possible! As I’ve noted before both routes, the Abruzzi and the Česen merge at Camp 4 around 25,000-feet/7,600-meters so the work being done to fix both routes yields benefits by spreading out tents lower on the mountain and reducing potential rockfall from other climbers but once it comes time to go for the summit, we may, may…, see some serious crowding issues with close to 100 people. Hopefully there will be several days that will allow the teams to spread out. The first team will handle the responsibility of fixing the rope from C4 across the Bottleneck, the Traverse and on to the summit and then the other teams will benefit from their work. K2- Česen Adrian Ballinger and Carla Perez started off on the Abruzzi but have switched to the Česen. The just spent 6 days up high as they are preparing their bodies for a no O’s summit attempt later in July. AB posted: Let’s just start here… down from a six day acclimatization rotation including a couple of nights up at 22,500 feet (6900m), Camp 3. The climbing on our chosen route, the Cesen, is stunning. Steep, exposed, airy, and, for the most part, safer than I expected. But the best part of the rotation – following the footsteps of my friend and new @eddiebauer teammate @carla.perez.ec. Her strength and joy at being high on #k2 shone through the pain and suffering each and every day. We are down resting (and I need it!) but I know she is already chomping at the bit for round 2! Furtenbach Adventures, Madison Mountaineering and Mingma Sherpa are all on the Česen. Madison Mountaineering’s Sherpas are taking the lead on fixing the ropes. They posted from the Česen route on Thursday, July 11: Today is July 11th and we had a rest day today in base camp. Everyone’s doing well here. We resurfaced some tent platforms on the glacier and a few of our members, Victor, Rick, and Louis are still up at Camp 2 – coming down later today. And our Sherpas are pushing up to Camp 4 and heading back to Camp 3 this evening. So, all’s well here on K2! A stunning image posted by Garrett: Broad Peak – Ready for More Summits Mingma Sherpa posted their BP team is on the their summit push: Our team just started summit push on Broad Peak from Camp3. Tobias from Germany, Hari from USA, Sirbaz from Pakistan, Pemba Tshering and Phur Galjen Sherpa from Nepal are in team. K2 team is now back to base camp for final rest before going to summit in next week. Good Luck to Broad Peak team. Climb On! Alan Memories are Everything
K2 2019 Summer Season Coverage – K2 Becomes More Organized
Good weather is allowing teams to make excellent progress on their acclimatization rotations across the Karakorum. Another teams moves from the Abruzzi to the Česen on K2. Big Picture Teams have been in the Karakorum for a couple of weeks now. The season began with a lot of snow during the trek and difficult conditions were reported at K2 Base Camp. But the weather has improved considerably in recent days. This break has enable climbers all over to make excellent progress with their acclimatization schedules and to achieve summits on Nanga Parbat, Gasherbrum I and Broad Peak. I’m getting reports of excellent cooperation amongst the teams on almost all the mountains. With a record number of permits, this is critical to reduce the risks of poor tent placement, triggering rockfall or avalanches. Of course there will always be that person, especially given that some teams have members with limited experience and K2 is not the place to learn! If the weather continues like it has, we might see summits on K2 as early as later this week or into the week of July 15. In 2014, the first summits were on July 26 and in 2017 on July 28 and last year, 2018, on July 21. Of course, weather fronts run in patterns so this period may end soon. Lastly, there is a mix of small “independent” teams like Mike Horn or David Klein but most of the population are members of large commercial efforts like Madison, Furtenbach or Seven Summits Treks. Their Sherpas are the ones fixing the routes with ropes. As I’ve previously reported there are a record number of climbers on K2 this year, close to 125 but with attrition, we can expect to see less than 100 attempting the summit split over the two primary routes on the lower mountain. K2- Česen Furtenbach Adventures has moved from Broad Peak to K2 and will join Madison Mountaineering and Mingma Sherpa on the Česen. After opening the route and summiting on Broad Peak our team moved over to K2 basecamp. All is set and we continue our cooperation on K2 from last year with Garret and Mingma and will also be climbing on the Cesen route. Weather looks promising… As I mentioned in the last post, Mingma Sherpa of Imagine Nepal has switched from the standard Abruzzi to the Česen route due to crowds. Now it appears that Madison Mountaineering has switched as well. This takes over 50 climbers off the standard route but still leaves over 75 on the Abruzzi. Garrett Madison of Madison Mountaineering posted from the Česen route: Today is July 8th, and we are up at Camp 2, most of us. We had a great day today: we climbed halfway up to Camp 3 for acclimatization and familiarity with the route. Had beautiful weather today; great views of the surrounding peaks and the Godwin-Austen Glacier. We are back to Camp 2, tucked in and ready for bed. Our plan is to probably spend another day up here at Camp 2 acclimatizing and then heading down in a couple of days time. K2 – Abruzzi Over on the Abruzzi, Seven Summits Treks noted progress: “Rope fixing team fixed rope till Camp 4 today in K2. Climbers are waiting for Final Push soon.” Hungarian David Klein and partner Suhajda Szilárd slept at 6700 meters on their rotations. Mike Horn is back at BC after a night at Camp 2. And because going up is only half way, here is a little preview of @fredroux72 climbing down what we call the chimney on our way back to basecamp from camp 2. Can’t wait to head up to camp 3 soon and finish our acclimatization process and attempt the summit within the next couple weeks! He posted a short video rappelling down House Chimney. You can compare the snow conditions from this picture I took in 2014 of the Chimney. GI &II – Summits and Progress The Alpine Club Pakistan reports summits on Gasherbrum I: Congratulations to Mr. HongBin Kim And his team members. Summit Gasherbrum I (8068m) Expedition led by Mr. Kim Hongbin has successfully Summit G1 on dates 7-7-2019 at 5:12pm Pakistan standard time. Summit members:- 1. Mr. Kim Hongbin Leader. ( Korean) 2. Mr. Cho Cheol Hee ( Korean) 3. Mr. Cheong Ha Young ( Korean) 4. Mr. Pechhumbe Sherpa ( Nepal) 5. Mr. Muhammad Pakistani. Sergi Mingote is moving to Gasherbrum now that he has summited Nanga. Same for Nirmal Purja. Matthew Randall & Matt Gorbett who are attempting to climb and ski Gasherbrum I and II without oxygen have slept at Camp 3 and are heading back to base before their final summit push. Denis Urubko and Pipi Cardell who are looking at a new route on GII reported: “We start acclimatisation up to G2 and all goes good!!!” Also, Marco Confortola with Ali Durani have competed two rotations and are back at base camp. Broad Peak – Ready for More Summits Kobler and Parter team made it to Camp 3 for their acclimatization. Lydia Bradey posted some nice pictures and Billie Bierling gave a solid update on the blog. Of note she talks about hard blue ice between Camps 2 and 3. Climb On! Alan Memories are Everything
K2 2019 Summer Season Coverage – Progress With Good Weather
Teams across the Karakorum are making summits and progress during an elongated period of good weather. But with the record climbers on K2, some teams are making serious decisions. And a few special projects are seeing success. K2 – Two Routes Open As I mentioned in the last post, Mingma Sherpa of Imagine Nepal has switched from the standard Abruzzi to the Česen route due to crowds. Now it appears that Madison Mountaineering has switched as well. This takes over 50 climbers off the standard route but still leaves about 100 on the Abruzzi. Garrett Madison posted: Our sherpas were to fix to Camp 3 on the Česen route yesterday. Which is great progress. And we’ll keep working to fix higher, hopefully, they can reach Camp 4 in the next few days or so. Our plan is to head up tomorrow morning early on our first rotation to spend a few nights upon the Česen route acclimatizing and getting familiar with the route. Everybody’s doing great here at base camp. Beautiful weather and we look forward to more great days ahead! And Mingma Sherpa weighed in : The weather on K2 kept us surprising everyday with mostly clear skies which I didn’t experience in my previous 2014, 2016 and 2017 K2 expeditions. Today Madison team fixed the rope to camp3 and tomorrow our team is heading on mountain for acclimatization and fixing route to camp4 which can be expected on Monday if the weather remains stable. Our Broad peak team is heading back to base camp for rest spending a night at camp3. All is going well and expected to go well. This is both good news and bad news. Yes, there will be less competition for tent spots on the lower part of the mountains, but the route merge below Camp 4, about 25,000-feet/7600-meters so the potential of long waits still remain for the Bottleneck and the Traverse. Dawa Sherpa of Seven Summits Treks noted progress on the Abruzzi: “Sherpa will climb to C2 on 6th July, scheduling 7th and 8th for C3 opening” Mike Horn is back at BC after a night at Camp 2. It was a cold and windy night up at camp 2 but the sun is shining today for our descent back to K2 basecamp! Once arrived in basecamp, we will rest for a couple of days before setting off for the last part of our acclimatization process: climbing up to camp 3 (7200m) and spending a night there before heading back down to basecamp. Adrian Ballinger and his team are on the move on the Abruzzi: The sun’s still shining here in the Karakoram (it’s been an unheard of stretch of good weather for 2 weeks) so it’s time for us to make our first push up high on #k2. Keeping it light and (hopefully) fast-ish, so no wifi and no posting for 4 days. No news is good news! Forced social media detox begins now By the way, UK outfitter Adventure Peaks is also on K2 this year. GI &II – Progress Matthew Randall & Matt Gorbett who are attempting to climb and ski Gasherbrum I and II without oxygen have surpassed their goal of $20,000 for the Special Forces Foundation: “Great news everyone, we have raised $21,920 for the Special Forces Foundation so far!!!” Denis Urubko and Pipi Cardell who are looking at a new route on GII reported: “We start acclimatisation up to G2 and all goes good!!!” Also, Marco Confortola with Ali Durani have competed two rotations and are back at base camp. Broad Peak – Summits!! Furtenbach Adventures said their lead guide Max Berger summited but no details. And Eduard Wagner aka Edward Ulysses who has an interesting write up on his site. Karakorum Expeditions reported five summits on BP including “Mingma Dorchi summited Broad Peak within 3 days arriving k2 Base Camp.”. No other names were available. Also of note on BP is Uzma Yousaf who is first Pakistani female to climb Spantik peak 7027m, in 2017. She attempted BP last year. She has done a second rotation to C2. By the way, I love this picture from Masherbrum Expeditions of “Our Bar B.Q master Mr. Haidar is on his duty at Broad Peak Base Camp .” Nanga Parbat – Summit!! Last week saw a lot of success on Nanga Parbat including Stefi Troguet, Sergi Mingote, Moeses Fiamoncini, Boris Langenstein, Anton Pugovkin and Vitaly Lazo with Cala Clementi who skied from the summit. Nirmal Purja summited Nanga Parbat accomplishing seven of his goal of all 14 8000ers within 7 months. He summited Annapurna, Dhaulagiri, Kangchenjunga, Makalu, Everest, and Lhotse in April and May. He now moves to GI/II, Broad and K2. There are more Broad Peak summit attempts underway this weekend. First Ascents The Alpine Club of Pakistan posted a new route on the 7788-meter peak, Rakaposhi: Congratulations to Mr. Kazuya Hiraide & Mr. Kenro Nakajima from Japan on climbing Rakaposhi (7788M) using a new route on South Face!! They attempted the peak in alpine style and reached the summit of Rakaposhi on July 2, 2019. Also that the 28 year-old son of Reinhold Messner, Simon accomplished a solo first ascent: Simon Messner has made the first ascent of Geshot Peak (Toshe 3) in Bunar valley, Pakistan. It was an acclimating exercise for his main expedition of Muztagh Tower (7276). Congratulations Simon. Simon posted: On 29 June I did the first ascent of Toshe III (local name Geshot Peak, appr. 6200m) which is located South-West of Nanga Parbat in Bunar Valley, Pakistan. Due to the difficult snow conditions, the warm temperatures and the very unstable weather I decided to climb the mountain in a single solo push from ABC (appr. 4600m). The plan was to climb light and fast to avoid the bad weather coming up and although I had to track every single meter I reached the summit at 9:30 am (needing 5,5h in total). While descending I was aware of the high avalanche risk which I had to deal with, but luckily everything went well and I could reach the base camp on the
K2 2019 Summer Season Coverage – Will K2 be like Everest this Year?
As the ropes fixers make progress and teams prepare for their first rotations, there is trouble in the air. Similar to the early signals this past spring on many 8000ers with 10 deaths, the additional 11 deaths on Everest made the warning signs clear. And now we see the same signals on K2: record permits issued, and inexperienced climbers. The wildcard may be how the weather develops and how many days will be suitable for summit bids. In any event, queuing at House Chimney, the Bottleneck and the Traverse occur when there are less than 30 people on the Hill. What will happen with five times that? More Nanga Summits But first, some good news on Nanga Parbat. Stefi Troguet with Ali Sadpara were reported to have summited as does the tracker show for Sergi Mingote. Thats four summits thus far, I think. K2 – Traffic Control Mingma Sherpa of Imagine Nepal has made the decision to use the Česen route and not the standard Abruzzi. He posted: Because of too much traffic on Abruzzi route, we choose Česen route for this year to avoid accident and traffic. This has not worked out too well in the last few years with too much rock fall and avalanche danger but let’s see what Mingma finds. But it shows the concern that operators are having as the season gets seriously underway. The rope team has made it to Camp 2 on the Abruzzi. I don’t think there are any ropes yet on the Česen. As I reported when the season started, there are over 150 climbers on K2 alone. This is a list of those just on K2 this summer: Operator Agency Peak(s) Country Permits Leader 14 Sherpa K2 Expedition (aka Seven Summits Treks / 14 Peak) Blue Sky K-2 Nepal 42 Mr. Chang Dawa Sherpa International K-2 Broad Peak (aka Imagine Nepal) Leala Peak Expeditions K-2 & Broad Peak Nepal 31 Mr.Mingma Gyalje Sherpa Madison International K-2 Mashabrum Expeditions K-2 USA 23 Mr. Garrett Madison K-2 Broad Peak Karakorum Expeditions K-2 & Broad Peak Canada 16 Mr. Louis Rousseau K-2 Expedition Lela Peak K-2 British 14 Mr. Adrian John Ballinger Furtenbach K-2 Broad Peak Jasmine Tours K-2 & Broad Peak Austria 11 Mr. Christoph Garber K-2 – Adventure Peaks Summit Karakoram K-2 UK 10 Mr. Paul Noble International K-2 Expedition ATP K-2 Swiss 6 Mr. Frederic George K-2 Expedition Jasmine Tours K-2 Argentina 2 Mr. Maximo Gustavo Kausch Serantes K-2 Expedition Nippa Travel K-2 Japan 1 Kawasaki Hiroshi Adrian Ballinger and his team made their first sortie up the Abruzzi and to a bit of a surprise as he explains on Instagram: “I’ve been doing this for 30 years” – says anonymous climber after kicking off a wet slide that sent him for a big ride and almost wiped us off the face moving to C1 on the Abruzzi today. Now, don’t get me wrong. We all make mistakes all the time in the big mountains. We made one today, being on the face too late in the day when it was way too hot. Our stoke to get high for the first time and see the route clouded our decision-making and put us in a position to be under a slide in the first place. But when we fuck up like this, we acknowledge it, talk about it, and share it. We try to learn from screwing up and getting lucky. The team that triggered the slide, when we went to check they were ok, came up with, “I’ve been doing this for 30 years”. Sweet…I’m sure the mountain cares. And he weighs in on the number of climbers and their experience: lots of potential issues – similar to #everest, not necessarily too many permits, but I think major issues with inexperienced climbers and the operators that bring them. Let’s see…. Digging Deeper into the Experience Problem I reached out to Garrett Madison of Madison Mountaineering to get his thoughts on how the season is shaping up; Q: How does K2 look from BC? At this time on K2 it looks like there is more snow on the mountain compared to previous years I’ve been here (2014-2018). All of the surrounding peaks seem to have more snow present. I believe this can be good for us if the snow is consolidated. This will minimize rockfall potential, and make some of the climbing easier if there is less rock on route exposed. However, if the snow is unconsolidated this can make climbing much more challenging, as unconsolidated snow can be deep and arduous to climb through, and avalanches are more likely in this scenario. Q: Are you concerned with so many people attempting it? I am concerned that this season it appears there are more than double the number of climbers attempting K2 as last season. Last season felt ‘busy’ to me on the Abruzzi ridge route, we had to share camps with another team. We made it work, but with more than double the amount of climbers it will be much more challenging to make the camp situation at C 1 & C 2 work. Additionally, climber generated rockfall is a real concern, as well as ‘bottlenecks’ on the fixed ropes in tight sections of the route such as ‘Houses Chimney’. Q: How will you coordinate space at C1/2 that is so limited? We are either going to have to share tents with another team as we did last season (on the Abruzzi route camps) or we will switch to another route. We are investigating alternative route options and will decide which route we will commit to shortly. Q: Any reports from the rope team on snow conditions above C1 and finally Garrett it is sounding like K2 has finally become Everest with crowds, rope fixing teams, etc. Our Sherpas that went to Camp 1 have reported favorable snow conditions. This is consistent with what the Broad Peak climbers reported from Camps 1 & 2 on Broad Peak. Hopefully the upper mountain
K2 2019 Summer Season Coverage – Teams On the Move, Nanga Summit
With a few days of decent weather, teams made progress across the Karakorum. But the forecast calls for some high winds in the days ahead so it may become quiet later this week. The first Karakorum summit of this summer season was accomplished on Nanga Parbat. K2 – Ropes to C2 Dawa Sherpa of Seven Summits Treks, the largest team in the Karakorum, as usual, said the rope team reached C2: Just got an internet connection, have a look at SST – K2 expedition basecamp setup. All team members and Sherpas are fine, Rope fixing Team already opened route up to C1 and today on the way to C2. Almost 65 Climbers are attempting in K2, this is the largest group I ever saw ! Hope this we will have similar success rate like in past years. Gasherbrum 1 / 2 members are also fine and having rest at basecamp. They are using their Everest model on K2 with heavy Sherpa support. Other teams will most likely draft off their efforts. I’m expecting record K2 summits this season if the weather holds. Most teams are using the traditional Abruzzi route but some may inspect the Česen as a less crowded alternative, however it is more susceptible to avalanches and with the heavy snow thus far, it might be too dangerous. Mike Horn continues to take the lead on K2. They were the first to overnight at C1 and now are aiming for C2 or higher. After a restful weekend in basecamp, it’s time for @fredroux72 and I to make our way up to camp 2 (6700m) and even higher if we’re feeling it! The weather seems to be in our favor, and we’re feeling strong. It should take us about 10 hours to climb from basecamp to camp 2 – wish us luck and we’ll keep you posted Adrian Ballinger and his team arrived at K2 base Camp after a couple of “sick days” on the trek in. Madison Mountaineering is being patient as usual: We are at base camp. We had a wonderful trek in over a week. And arrived in base camp three days ago. We’re getting base camp set up now and almost have it finally dailed in. It’s nice to be here and get settled and get ready for our first rotation which is probably five or six days off. Everyone’s doing well and we are excited to be here enjoying base camp. GI &II – Progress Matthew Randall & Matt Gorbett are attempting to climb and ski Gasherbrum I and II without oxygen. They intend to raise $20,000 for the Special Forces Foundation. They report in with nice progress: After the last post, Matt made his way partially up to Camp 2, deposited a cache of gear at 20,300′, before returning to Camp 1. He slept another night there, and then returned to BC the following day. In the next day or so, Matt is planning on climbing back up to Camp 1, sleeping there, continuing up to Camp 2, sleeping there, and depending on how he feels, possibly climbing higher and making a Camp 3. He’s still feeling great, eating well and is ready for his next push up the mountain! . Broad Peak – Established C2 Kobler and Parter give a nice update written by Billi Bierling: We have been in Pakistan for nearly three weeks and after the struggle to get all our gear to base camp and set it up nicely to make our lives as comfortable as possible, there has been quite a lot of action on the mountain over the past few days. On Thursday, 27 June, Dawa and Karma Sherpa from our team as well as two Sherpa and one Pakistani high-altitude porter from two other teams opened to route to C2, reaching 6100m; and it was surprise how high they reached. Furtenbach Adventures hints at an early summit: Back at basecamp from first rotation and rope fixing together with an other team up to camp 2 on Broad Peak. Conditions are good now but it looks like more snow moving in end of the week. Let’s see, maybe there is a slight chance to give it a quick try… Nanga Parbat – Summit!! Mountain.ru reports a summit on Nanga Parbat by French climber Boris Langenstein on Monday, July 1. They report the “Freeride in the death zone,” Vitaly Lazo, Anton Pugovkin and Cala Clementi are planning to reach the summit tomorrow morning. They are planning to ski from the summit. Climb On! Alan Memories are Everything
K2 2019 Summer Season Coverage – Weather Allows Progress
After the slow start for teams to even reach their base camps, the weather relented late this week and progress was made on K2, Nanga Parbat and Broad Peak K2 Mike Horn made progress on K2: Back in basecamp after a successful climb to camp 1. Could not go higher due to snow conditions. Today is the first clear day so we will wait for the snow to settle and head back up this evening. It takes about 2.5 hours to get from basecamp to advanced basecamp through the icefall. It is a short trip but dangerous due to the exposure to avalanches and crevasses. Adrian Ballinger who is climbing K2 sans Os is having a bit of a stomach issue on the Blatoro: If you’re gonna spend 36 hours in a tent puking and shitting and shivering your brains out, it may as well be beautiful. I can guarantee I’ll never forget the Goro II camp on the trek to #K2. Yesterday all I wanted was a
K2 2019 Summer Season Coverage – Too Few Porters, Too Much Snow
The 2019 Karakorum season seems to be getting off on the wrong boot. For over week now we keep hearing about poor weather on K2, now it’s the same story on Broad Peak. Kobler and Parter reports in with their 17 person team: At the moment the weather is not too favourable to go to the mountain which has given us time to make our base camp almost as chique as the cafe in Islamabad! Once again Mike Horn chimes in from K2: Bad weather still hampering our progress but we went for a hike up K2 to keep the legs moving! And Furtenbach Adventures joins the choir: Most of the team is now in Broad Peak basecamp (pictures). Pretty quiet and quite pretty. Many teams are delayed by snow and porter problems. Lots of snow this season. Weather cleared up yesterday but the massive snowpack on the steep slopes on Broad Peak puts everything on hold. Also no progress on K2 yet. Our double expedition Flash team members are on the way, K2 Flash member will helicopter in-in July only. Yes, it’s still early but every day not able to fix ropes or acclimatize brings winter closer. Shortage of Porters One Pakistan Expeditor operator told me that there is a serious shortage of porters to haul gear up the Baltoro to the base camps of K2, Broad Peak and the Gasherbrum’s: Everyone just jumped in without knowing others date of arrival and how many arriving on same date. In Askoli the quantity is 500 including animals and demand is 1000 or more within one week. Also inexperience tour operators with cheap packages are another reason. Everyone one has problems this year shortage of porters animals and new snow. Animals cannot walk on snow Let’s hope all this gets resolved so the climbing can begin … when the weather allows. Climb On! Alan Memories are Everything
K2 2019 Summer Season Coverage – Snow Stalling K2 Progress
Only a few teams have arrived at K2 Base Camp thus far while many others are making their way closer by trekking on the Baltoro Glacier. Activity is also picking up on the other 8000ers in Pakistan. Finally, more deaths are being reported on the mountains this summer. Snow at K2 BC Swiss climber, Mike Horn, is doing a nice job of keeping everyone updated on his teams progress through his expensive social media. He arrived at BC last week and wanted to get to Camp 2 but snow conditions have delayed their efforts: New week, new goals! Weather not at its best today, we’ll have to wait for it to clear before we make our way to camp 2 (6500m) – acclimatization going well so far, @fredroux72 and I feeling in top shape! I don’t have a lot of details but there are reports of a Japanese climber who arrived earlier on K2 and had all of his great lost to an avalanche. He had to abandon his climb and has left the mountain. My source passed on a quote from a Gilgit-Baltistan area local that he has not seen this much snow in 29 years. Madison Mountaineering reports in half way to K2 BC with better weather but a bit of rain. It’s still very early in the climbing cycle. We can anticipate K2 summits in late July, over a month to go. That said, with over 160 people on K2 alone, there will need to be effective communication and coordination amongst the teams on where to pitch tents, especially at C1, C2 and C3. With this many people, there is a chance that someone might unwittingly position a tent in an avalanche prone area. In 2013 an avalanche swept a tent off the mountain at Camp 3. Killed were highly experienced guide Marty Schmidt, 53, and his son, Denali, 25. Heavy snow hit K2 that season and all other teams had retreated to base camp to let the snow settle. Other 8000ers Broad Peak Kari Kobler is leading a team to BP including Lynda Bradey and Billi Bierling. Also Furtenbach Adventuresis on BP. Nanga Parbat Mountain Planet is reporting that Russian alpinists Vitaly Lazo and Anton Pugovkin announce the start of “Death Zone Freeride” project. The goal is: to ascent 5 highest mountains of the world with no supplement oxygen, and to descent skiing. They are Manaslu, Annapurna, Nanga Parbat, Everest, K2. They got Manaslu in 2017 and Annapurna last year. You can follow on their site. They have already established C1 and 2 on the Kinshoffer Wall. This is their video from Manaslu. Gasherbrum II Denis Urubko and María Cardell are on their way hoping for a new route on GII. New Speed Record on Denali On Thursday 20 June 2019 38-year-old Ecuadorian mountain guide Karl Egloff broke Kilian Jornet’s speed record when he climbed the West Buttress route on Denali in 7 hours and 40 minutes, smashing Jornet’s time of 9:45. Jornet skied down but Egloff simply walked and ran! Overall, he completed a round trip climb of the West Buttress route in a total of 11 hours, 44 minutes. The previous record for a round trip speed climb was set in 2014 at 11 hours, 48 minutes by Killian Jornet. More Climbing Deaths 2019 started off with the deaths of Tom Ballard Daniel Nardi in February on the 8,000-meter peak Nanga Pabart. Then in April, elite climbers, American Jess Roskelley and Austrians David Lama and Hansjörg Auer were killed in an avalanche on Canada’s Howse Peak attempting a very difficult new route. Then in April and May we saw 10 deaths on the 8000ers, Annapurna, Lhotse Makalu, and Kanchenjunga then another 11 just on Everest. Quick on the heels of these deaths came an avalanche on the24,390-foot/7,434-meter Nanda Devi East in Northern India that took the lives of eight climbers. An eight person team was lead by veteran British mountaineer Martin Moran and included four Britons, two Americans, an Australian and an Indian. Seven of the bodies have been recovered. Now in Pakistan on Melvin Jones Peak at 5,800-meter/19028-foot, seven climbers with an Italian team were hit by an avalanche killing at least one Pakistani. Finally in this string of tragedy, the Alpine Club of Pakistan is reporting that two Chinese climbers, Li Haoxin Chen and Ka Kit Ng, are missing on a technical 6,400m peak in the Liligo Glacier/Trango Towers area. Everest Weather Online Not to be left out, there is still more Everest news. A National Geographic/Rolex sponsored project has put several weather stations on and around Everest at the Balcony (8382m), South Col (8000m), C2 (6487m), EBC (5298m) and Phortse (3780m) are now available online. Summits Top 10,000 With the final numbers from the Nepal and Chinese governments, it appears that there were between 885 and 900 summits in 2019 smashing the previous one season record of 715 summits in 2018 thus bringing the total summits around 10,050 by over 5,800 individuals. With the 11 deaths, that total is now 304. There were only 2 summits that didn’t use supplemental oxygen. The best final statistics will come from the Himalayan database later this year. Climb On! Alan Memories are Everything
K2 2019 Summer Season Coverage – First at K2 Base Camp
The first climbers have arrived at K2 Base camp. Mike Horn reported in that he experienced snowfall throughout the entire trek: Hello everyone, this is Mike reporting from K2 base camp. It has been an intense week trekking up to K2 base camp. Heavy snows started falling from day 1 and didn’t stop until we reached base camp. This is quite a change from our last K2 expedition in 2015, when it only started snowing on our last day before reaching K2 base camp. Occasional snowfalls are to be expected around 5000m and upwards, however I was surprised to witness snow on the second day of our trek. Madison Mountaineering reports that they got a break with good weather and flew to Skardu instead of taking the 2-day drive along the Karakorum Highway. A person to watch is young Belgium climber Niels Jespers. He summited Nanga Parbat last Summer with no Os or support. He is with the Pakistani outfitter Lela Peak Expeditions. Huge Team As usual, the volume operator on nearly all mountains these days, Seven Summits Treks, reports that their K2 2019 team includes 19 international climbers with 18 Sherpas and 4 Pakistani High Porters. German alpinist Herbert Hellmuth is part of their team. It will be interesting to see how all the teams coordinate tent space at Camp1 and 2 which have notoriously small footprints. There are over 160 climbers on K2 this summer. Climb On! Alan Memories are Everything