After negotiating complexities of Pakistani bureaucracy, all five Nanga Parbat teams are up against the mountain itself now.
No holidays or Christmas break for winter climbers. After negotiating complexities of Pakistani bureaucracy, all five Nanga Parbat teams are up against the mountain itself now. Rupal side team has already started the route preparation. Diamir teams are reaching Base Camp, one by one.
Progress on Rupal Side
“Justice for All” winter Nanga Parbat expedition once consisted of Marek Klonowski and Tomek Mackiewicz. However, situation changed in past couple of years. Justice for All 2016 is a Polish-Pakistani expedition, consisting of Marek Klonowski, Karim Hayat, Pawel Dunaj, Pawel Witkowski, Michal Dzikowski, Safdar Karim, Tomasz Dziobkowski, Piotr Tomza and Pawel Kudla.
The team acclimatized on Rakaposhi and reached Latabo Base Camp at around mid-December. They are now fixing the route and setting up higher camps. As per updates from Poland, it appears that they have established C1-A and Camp 1 (at 5500m) few days ago. Schell is one of the lengthiest routes on Nanga Parbat.
Trekking Towards Diamir BC
First teams have reached Diamir Base Camp as well, and are reporting excessive snow in valley and dry conditions on mountain.
Northeast Side
Two teams are attempting the unfinished route between Diamir and Rakiot flanks on Northeast side of mountain (attempted by Reinhold Messner, Hubert Messner, Hanspeter Eisendle, and Wolfgang Tomaseth in 2000). Italians Simone Moro and Tamara Lunger are one team, whereas second group consists of Elisabeth Revol, Tomek Mackiewicz and Arsalan Ahmed. Both teams reached Base Camp, yesterday.
“Tom and Eli go to mountain tomorrow, I stay (at BC for a) few more days. Mountain is completely dry this year,” Arsalan Ahmed updated on Facebook a while ago.
“After some very sad days, we finally arrived at basecamp. Two days of trail making and tomorrow we will start upwards!! We have exactly 2 hours of sun during the day and in only 3 minutes the temperature is going down 20 degrees. Cold!” exclaimed Tamara.
Kinshofer Route
Two team will be attempting Kinshofer route (so called “normal route”) on Diamir side. After acclimatization in North America and a quick journey to Chilas, Poles Adam Bielecki and Jacek Czech started the Base Camp trek on December 26th and were expected to reach BC today.
“Finished first day of trekking and today we sleep at 3000 m in school built by Reinhold Messner. We feel great and hope that tomorrow we will reach base camp. ” Adam Bielecki wrote yesterday.
Second Kinshofer team is currently in Chilas and will start the trek tomorrow. “In Chilas together with Daniele Nardi and Ali Sadpara. Tomorrow will start walking up to BC,” says Alex Txikon.
Upcoming Action
We can expect some quick action on Kinshofer route, as both parties are better pre-acclimatized. Adam Bielecki and Jacek Czech are set for an alpine style summit-bid within next couple of weeks (depending upon weather conditions). Alex, Daniele and Ali will try to reach C3 directly and get ready for summit-bid as early as possible.
Northeast side teams, unfortunately, haven’t been lucky with pre-expedition acclimatization. A set of unknown issues thwarted Simone Moro and Tamara Lunger’s plan for Spantik. Tomek, Elisabeth and Arslan also couldn’t acclimatize on a 6000m peak in Skardu region due to bureaucratic problems. Both teams may spend some time on mountain before summit push.
Schell route on Rupal side is a marathon, and requires due time before the team is able to launch a summit push.
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