K2 Summits Day 2 (Updated)

Posted: Jul 27, 2014 07:32 pm EDT

(By Raheel Adnan) There were several summits on K2 yesterday (July 26th); apparently more than previous number of maximum summits on a single day. However, it wasn’t the end of the story, as another summit push was launched this night. As of now, at least 7 summits are confirmed from today. Samuli Mansikka and the American team reached the top in beautiful conditions, after 8am local time.

Summit Push

The climbers going for summit today included American team (Garrett Madison, Alan Arnette, Matthew Dupuy and three Sherpa), Finnish Samuli Mansikka and possibly an international team (Zdravko Dejanovic, Mingma Gyalje Sherpa, Reza Shahlaee), if they didn't go for summit yesterday. It's reported that American team left C4 at 22:40 hrs on July 26th.

In a dispatch before leaving for summit push, Garrett Madison said, "Today is Saturday, July 26th at 6:00pm and we are up at High Camp with Alan and Matt. Our plan is to leave in about four hours for our summit push. A few climbers made the summit today and are on their way back now and we are very happy for them. It is snowing a little bit but when we get up tonight we will have clear skies while we are climbing up and early tomorrow morning."

Success

Samuli Mansikka tweeted at around 08:25AM, "I AM ON SUMMIT OF K2!! The very highest point 8611m! Beautiful day although maybe the hardest I've done! No bottled oxygen, no support!"

American team also communicated success at around 8:00AM. Following members had reached the top:-

1. Alan Arnette – USA

2. Matthew Dupuy – USA

3. Garrett Madison – USA

4. Kami Rita Sherpa – Thame Solu Khumbu, Nepal

5. Fur Kancha Sherpa – Thame Solu Khumbu, Nepal

6. Kami Tshering Sherpa – Pangbotse, Nepal

And just now, Alan Arnette tweeted, “K2 summit unbelievably hard.” We may assume that he has safely made it back to C4.

As of now, we don’t have information about any other team/climber summiting, today.

Update 01

The above mentioned International expedition was indeed part of summit push on July 27th, and was successful in reaching the top. "Today (27th) All team member summit K2" was the message from the team.

Confirmed summiteers are Iranian Reza Shahlaee and Macedonian Zdravko Dejanovic. Full list of climbers reaching the summit is awaited, yet.

On a side note, a third summit push is underway on K2, as Polish team and Bulgarian climber Boyan Petrov, who summited Broad Peak few days ago, leave the Base Camp tonight. They're targeting August 1st as summit day.

Update 02

More from K2; Spaniard Miguel Angel Perez has reached the summit of K2 at around 1300hrs, today (July 28th). On 26th he had to turned back 300m below summit, due to cold. After resting and recovering, he went for the summit, today.