Akhbar Syed, managing expeditions on both Gasherbrums, Broad Peak, and K2 from Broad Peak Base Camp, has told ExplorersWeb that climbers have summited Gasherbrum II.
The Czech-Slovak Expedition Club team, Spain’s The Altitude Team, Pakistan’s Sirbaz Khan, Ali Raza and Naila Kiani, and Polish climber Piotr Krzyzowski all appear to have summited. The climbers’ trackers confirm their summit and show some of them (such as The Altitude Team) already descending.
Sirbaz Khan’s tracker, showing his position on Gasherbrum II’s summit.
Things are slower on Broad Peak, where fresh snow is making progress really difficult.
“Many people abandoned the summit [push] after reaching the saddle,” Mirza Ali posted at around 1 pm local time. “Our fixing team and some clients are still trying to reach the summit but it’s very deep snow and already late for the summit.”
Akhbar Syed also mentioned that Mustapha, a high-altitude porter who fell ill and had to be helped down to Camp 1 yesterday, is now safely back at Base Camp.
K2 West Ridge update
Currently, it is sunny and windless on K2, Ian Welsted told ExplorersWeb from near K2 Base Camp. However, forecasts suggest that the weather could turn tomorrow.
Welsted and Graham Zimmerman detailed their progress on K2’s West Ridge, where they reached up to 6,000m:
“We got off the route in the night and ran into slabby snow [possibly avalanche-prone] conditions on the ridge,” Welsted said. “As we only had one more day of good weather according to our forecast, we decided it was not worth climbing any further and came down.”
