After two days of worrisome silence, Denis Urubko and Don Bowie are resting at Camp 2 on Broad Peak, after reaching 6,950m — above Camp 3 and near the bergschrund before the plateau. That’s good news, but our wait is not over.
According to Montagna.tv, which broke the news, the climbers might use some old fixed ropes on the bergschund to access the plateau. From there, they will need to fix their route, so their summit day is likely Saturday, not tomorrow.
For now, though, Urubko and Bowie have safely returned to Camp 2 for the night.
The yellow dot shows the highest point reached by the climbers today. Urubko and Bowie have returned for the night to Camp 2, lower green point. Photo: Denis Urubko
Broad Peak has a two-kilometre-long summit ridge and it is a long way to the Central Peak. Their work is far from done.
The first (calendar) winter ascent of Broad Peak was on March 5 2013 by Poles Maciej Berbeka, Adam Bielecki, Tomas Kowalski and Artur Małek. However, Urubko believes that true (meteorological) winter starts on December 1 and finishes at the end of February. So by his standards, the first winter ascent of Broad Peak has yet to be done.
Should the pair succeed, they will still have time to try for the real, undisputed winter prize: K2.
