Climbers on K2 will need all hands to fix ropes from Camp 3 to the summit. It’s 1,400m of altitude gain on the most difficult sections of the route.
Mingma G explained how the effort is being shared.
His team has dropped an extra 600m of rope at 7,100m, the highest point fixed so far. This is slightly below Camp 3 (7,350m).
“With this, we have 2,400m of rope to fix the way to Camp 4 and the summit,” he said.
Mingma G also noted that Madison Mountaineering, Elite Exped, and Prakash Sherpa’s teams are also contributing. Yesterday evening, the route was fixed to 200m above Camp 3.
“We know there will be summits on August 11,” the Sherpa team leader wrote encouragingly.
The plan is for all climbers to reach Camp 3 by tomorrow and proceed to the summit on Monday. Currently, Lenka Polackova’s tracker locates her at Camp 3. Charles Page’s tracker shows he is at 6,600m (Camp 2). Ryan Mitchell seems to have retreated from Advanced Base Camp. His tracker puts him at 4,900m, the altitude of Base Camp.
“The weather is getting better, we have enough rope, and all the teams are trying to cooperate, so we have enough manpower too,” Mingma G said.
As always, the climbers’ main concern is not so much the sections to the summit, hard though they are, but the way down. Conditions are good between Camp 1 and Camp 2, and excellent above that, but the lower part of the mountain between Camp 1 and ABC is a different story. There, the terrain is rocky and unstable, and dangerous rockfalls are frequent.
