The Seven Summit Treks’ caravan reached Base Camp around noon today, after a relatively short trek from Concordia. Their arrival more than doubled the population of Base Camp. Unless surprise last-minute entrants turn up, everyone trying winter K2 has now settled into their home for the next two months.
The newcomers were greeted with relatively mild weather: -20ºC and 10 to 15kph winds, according to Dawa Sherpa. The team will rest in BC for some days before starting their first rotation.
Sergi Mingote’s track at BC, showing the camp’s location at the foot of the mountain. Photo: RaceTracker.es
Meanwhile, the climbers fixing the route to Camp 3 have still not sent their daily report. [We’ll update this story when they do.] Mingma G and his team of Dawa Tenzing and Kilu Pemba are leading this stage of the expedition. Today, the plan was to fix their remaining 900m of rope from Camp 2, where they spent last night, as far toward C3 as possible.
The big SST group settles into K2 Base Camp earlier today. Photo: Seven Summit Treks
Difficulties increase along with altitude on K2. Reaching Camp 2 requires climbers to surmount the House Chimney. Camp 3’s location varies but is always above the Black Pyramid, probably the most technical section of the route: 400m of vertical and near-vertical climbing on mixed rock and ice. A “standard” Camp 3 is typically at 7,500m but it might be set on any place above 7,200m suitable for a tent.
For more information on the different sections of the Abruzzi Spur route, read this piece from one of ExplorersWeb’s sister sites. And Garret Madison’s video below shows the entire route from bottom to top (in summer).
John Snorri and the Sadparas rested in Camp 1 yesterday. Today, they proceeded to Camp 2 for a third acclimatization night at altitude. Besides the -30ºC temperatures, conditions were far from easy: “There is massive blue ice, and it was hard to pick the ice with the crampons, and my jumar was always freezing,” said Snorri. He also reported having to dodge a lot of falling rocks.
Snorri had a scare when one of his crampons fell off during the climb, but his partners managed to recover it. They have not mentioned their plans for tomorrow but after three days up high, everyone is likely to return to Base Camp until the New Year.
No word, as yet, from Nirmal Purja.
Winter Broad Peak
Zoltan Szlankó had to delay his flight to Islamabad because of bureaucratic reasons, but his climbing partner, Alex Goldfarb, is already in Pakistan and plans to fly to Skardu shortly.
“I hope to get some acclimatization [for winter Broad Peak] while I will wait for Zoltan,” Goldfarb told Russianclimb on Tuesday. Once Szlankó arrives, they’ll drive to Jhola, saving one hiking day. Once at Broad Peak’s Base Camp, they’ll climb a local peak for acclimatization. “Pastore Peak is a good candidate,” said Goldfarb. “it is 6,200m, never been climbed in winter, is very close to Base Camp, and it takes two days to summit in summer.”
They will then attempt Broad Peak itself in fast, alpine style. The pair only have one month in Pakistan, but will try to avoid the use of supplementary O2 out of respect for previous winter expeditions.
Thank you for the reporting! Would you be able to explain the rope fixing plan … are multiple teams cooperating and all climbers will share one rope? Or are some teams doing their own rope fixing? If there’s a successful summit – or summits – it’s so important that those who prepared the way are fully credited. It must be a Herculean task, especially in winter. And is there a distinction to be made between the climbers who are working/fixing rope and those who arrive to find the task, at least to the lower camps, completed? I’m asking from the… Read more »
Hi Jennifer, thanks for the (great) question! Indeed, winter K2 is a question of going all together or not going anywhere. Now that all expeditions are in place, and once the teams currently up the mountain return to Base Camp, there will be a meeting where strategies will be decided – and hopefully shared with media. The scene this year is not so different, albeit at a smaller scale and with a tougher goal ahead, from an Everest expedition: all teams are supposed to cooperate with their work and/or equipment. Now, bear in mind that all teams does not mean… Read more »
Many thanks for the detailed reply! That is helpful. I hope the climbing strategy is shared with the media so that those of us following at home all read/understand the same facts. Regardless, it is an exciting season!
I think that the climbers who don’t fix any ropes but pay others to do so should not be credited with reaching the summit first even if they are indeed the first to summit although I don’t know how that is even possible unless fixed ropes are not attached for the last bit.
Update Mingma g: “today we fixed the line to the ice section just below camp 3. We 3 were joined by Nims dai n Mingma Tenzi dai at around 7000 meter. Thanks to Nepalese brother n Nepalese heart. Thanks Dawa dai for great communication.”
Seems like they made it to 25.41 in the video above. How slowly they rise (compare to summer ’19) shows how hard it is. Tomorrow the wind will increase to +60km/h above 7000m, maybe to much to move further. The issue they probably struggling about is that the perfect summit weather window day looks Saturday. Too early for perfect preparation and acclimatisation, but hey, K2 does not take into account your wishes. To make use of this Saturday the should have reached C4 by Friday, despite the high predicted winds. At base camp SST showed a prepared team with their… Read more »