The terrible conditions in the Karakoram have ended the climbs of both commercial climbers and alpinists. Even two of the most exciting projects of the season, the climbs on 7,925m Gasherbrum IV, fizzled out.
An Italian team that wanted to climb the north side called their expedition off weeks ago. Charles Dubouloz and Symon Welfringer of France waited much longer and actually launched a summit push, but conditions proved too risky.
Left to right, Simon Welfringer and Charles Dubouloz. Photo: Mathieu Ruffray
Waiting for a chance
Two weeks ago, the pair carried gear and supplies to the base of the south face of Gasherbrum IV, where they had spotted a new route. They then retreated to their base camp on a moraine to wait for a weather window that refused to open.
“The waiting, the indecision, the inactivity were all the more difficult to manage because, these days, we’re used to having everything under control,” they wrote.
Finally, they launched a tentative push. “And once again, nothing went quite as planned,” Dubouloz wrote.
View from the climbers’ high camp. Photo: Mathieu Ruffray
Welfringer described the first day, when the climbers approached their cached gear, as exhausting. “We struggled for 12 hours through [soft, mild] snow,” he said, noting they were lucky to have snowshoes. “[Without them,] we wouldn’t have climbed 10 meters.”
No ice
From the start, Dubouloz and Welfringer found no ice to secure themselves to with screws, ice axes, and crampons; only soft, deep snow. After hours of plowing through porridge, they even tried to leave their backpacks behind and break trail first.
“We got to around 6,900m, still very low on the face, only at the beginning of this beautiful line we had dreamed of for over a month,” Dubouloz wrote. “At a crevasse, we hoped to finally find harder terrain where we could secure ourselves, so we scratched and dug through the deep snow, hoping to find the life-saving ice…in vain!”
“Disappointment is the first feeling…after so much physical, mental, and temporal investment,” Welfringer said.
The climbers were glad they were audacious enough to tackle one of the most formidable peaks in the Karakoram for a month and a half. But it was, they admitted, a learning experience.
Gasherbrum IV. Photo: Mathieu Ruffray
