Climbers have summited K2 after an exhausting 20-hour push from Camp 3. Mingma G has led the summit climb, and all the other teams still on the mountain followed to share the trail breaking and rope fixing.
These are the first August summits since 2012. The patient climbers waited a long time in Base Camp for their one opportunity to summit. Most had already left.
In addition to Mingma G’s Imagine Nepal Team and Prakash Sherpa’s Climber Alpinist Expeditions (CAE), Seven Summit Treks joined the push from Camp 3 last night. This team is led by K2 winter summiter Sona Sherpa, who managed a video call with company director Chhang Dawa Sherpa from the final ramps before the summit.
Sona Sherpa reporting live from K2, shortly before reaching the summit today. Instagram story by Chhang Dawa Sherpa
Charles Page of Canada, with Elite Exped, is also in the summit group. Lenka Polackova followed shortly below. Yesterday at Camp 3, she was still without supplementary oxygen. We are waiting for details about her climb today. At 3 pm local time, the exhausted climbers were on the final ramps, some 200 meters below the summit.
Charles Page’s tracker on K2 today at 12:20 pm local time. Photo: InReach/Google Maps
Tough conditions
Lenka Polackova and husband Jan Polacek wrote they stopped yesterday at 7,740m in a sort of “lower” Camp 4, for some rest before the final effort.
“During the ascent to C4, we were plagued by brutal gusty winds (60-80 kph) and heavy snowfall,” the Slovak woman told her team.
They left for the summit during the night and have been progressing slowly since then. Prakash Sherpa is leading them.
Strong bet
There is no information yet on the total number of summits or the conditions on the higher slopes, which might deteriorate as the day advances. Rockfall risk on the lower part of the mountain will be their main concern during the descent tomorrow. It was the main reason other teams called off their attempts.
Multimodel charts show unstable weather that seems to change with every new forecast.
Forecasts vary from day to day. Multimodel chart by Meteoexploration.com
