Deep snow had made things really difficult for the small group of climbers who set off for Broad Peak’s summit today. During the night, 10 set off and only two remain at the task.
Oswald Rodrigo Pereira and Anastasiia Runova are still pushing for the summit, Lela Peak’s Akhbar Syed told ExplorersWeb from Base Camp.
The summit push so far
Yesterday, Kim Hong Bin’s team fixed some 300m of rope above Camp 3. At 11 pm, Karakorum Expeditions’ Eid Muhammad, Jalal Uddin, and Faryad Karim, supported by Saeed Karim and Inayat Ali, set off towards the summit, fixing ropes on the way. Sometime later, five climbers joined them. Mirza Ali, following the operations from Base Camp, relayed that the climbers were trudging through waist-deep snow.
“The group comprised Niels Jespers (Belgium), Oswald Rodrigo Pereira (Poland), Hugo Ayaviri (Bolivia) and Anastasiia Runova (Russia),” Syed reports. Mirza Ali mentioned that Finnish climber Lotta Hintsa also joined the group.
“They wanted to reach the summit today, but there’s so much snow,” Syed said. At midday local time, the climbers had not yet reached the saddle that leads to Broad Peak’s summit ridge. By 1:30 pm, nearly everyone had turned around to descend to Camp 3. Only Pereira and Runova continued climbing.
Meanwhile, on Gasherbrum II, climbers are heading for Camp 3. The Altitude Team has said that they need to reopen the trail up to the Banana Ridge. Fresh snow had buried their previous tracks.
