Karakoram Diaries – 29th June
A diary of today’s events in the mountains of the Karakoram.
“We have fixed the rope up to Camp 1 on K2. After establishing Camp 1 the whole team are safely back to base camp.
“Team members, Jalal u din, Eid Mohammad, Ahmed Baig, Basharat, Faryad Karim, Inayat.”
“Our team has fixed the rope up to Camp 1 on Broad Peak – Local time: 10:10am PST.”
“At K2 base camp (4950 m) Karakoram Pakistan.
Even if everything remains to be done, it’s already a victory to be here.
This is a great place to thank those who encourage me through this Karakoram Project.
In the next few days I will be stretching on my goals and especially how to achieve it.”
“Jeff and I arrived at K2 base camp today. Tomorrow we will try to reach camp 1 of K2 to reserve a spot there. Thanks to the rental service of @k2antwerpen and @rab.equipment, we already have enough tents to occupy the necessary camps on K2 and Broad Peak.”
“Traveling amongst the highest peaks of the Karakoram has been a dream of mine for many years.
I am very happy to be here.”
“K2 Insulin Challenge: We made it to Base Camp!
“After back-to-back 20km hikes, we are now in the shadow of the giant. OMG, it is huge. Our camp is under a glacier and it rises 3600m vertically above us. Sheer ice and rock.”
“I got to the Broad Peak base camp. This is my home for over a month, with breaks of course to climb Broad Peak.”
“Today we go towards Askole.”
“This morning at I am at Broad Peak base camp. Surprisingly here I’ve been eating mangoes for desert since day one.
Pakistan is very dry, dusty, rocky. Green is only in some oasis near the river beds. Here on base camp at 4800m there are no plants. We live here by the force of our will. Anyhow the beauty of this place is stunning.”
“Karakorum is fantastic! The scale is cosmic, I haven’t been to such a place yet”
Saulius Damulevicius (Broad Peak)
“Today I woke up at Broad Peak base camp (4820 m) with the most incredible view of the K2 top! It turns out that it has been 2 weeks since leaving Lithuania, and the expedition is just beginning.”
Marco Confortola (Gasherbrum I)
“This morning we returned to the Gasherbrum base camp with a good pace after a night spent at Camp 1.
“I must admit that I thought I had to welcome night monsters or headaches that are typical of when this initial phase of acclimatization is about to be carried out, but fortunately this was not the case.
“The day will continue with a good lunch, laundry and finally the imminent arrival at base camp of Mario Vielmo.”
“We needed six days of good weather in order to get safely up and down the remote, unclimbed Biarchedi I (6,810 m) in Pakistan’s Karakoram mountains. With a forecast of 4.5 days of good weather, we headed up, but the snow started again after only one day and our good weather window was shortened to 2.5 days – not nearly what we needed.”
“After an additional 30-40 cm of new snow, we headed down, bringing all of our things with us from our high point at 5,650 m (see picture). It is always terribly disappointing to have invested so much time, energy and money into such a trip, only to be shut down by almost three weeks of bad weather. Luck was not on our side.”
“Reached base camp safe and sound. Tomorrow pushing to the Advance base camp.”
