Karakoram Diaries – 13th July
A round-up of today’s events on the mountains of the Karakoram.
(Updated throughout the day)
“Right now descending from camp 2 of Broad Peak, snow storm coming!”
“Team is back to basecamp after spending a night at Japanese Camp-3 below The Shoulder. With sudden change in weather, likely chances of snow and dip in temp below -20 C. Team will resume attempt likely on Thursday.”
“Shehroze Kashif has reached Goro 2. Tomorrow he will head to K2 base camp.”
“Two porters met us about 30 minutes outside of camp with cookies, Sprite, and Coke. It was greatly appreciated and a nice surprise! My tent is a big dome style tent with a smaller tent inside to sleep in. I’m able to keep all of my stuff really organized with this set up. The weather has been holding up for us, but it may turn a little worse later in the week.”⠀
“The day after tomorrow we are planning an ascent — on July 15th we will go to Camp 2, on the 16th — to Camp 3. On the 17th we hope to reach the summit, and on the 18th we will descend.
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“Today we held a joint meeting with all the groups that are in Broad Peak Base Camp now and discussed tactics. The weather is still bad, but on the 16th they promise an improvement. A good window is for July 17 and 18.
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“The difficulty of the ascent is that above 7000m the trail is not formed and the snow condition is terrible: a crust and soft loose snow under it, sometimes waist-deep… It will be necessary to trail with a large team, no one man can do it.
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“We discussed everything together: the famous Canadian climber Don Bowie, the Korean Kim, Lotta from Finland, our American colleagues, Israfil Ashurly and others. We should work collectively, otherwise we will not break through the path above Camp 3, and the top may not be reached.”
“I guess it’s time for an update. The last time we went up (no idea what day it was… let’s call it first day of the weather window) we climbed straight back to camp 2 with crazy heavy packs, with enough food and gas to last us five days and some more rope. We also wanted to bring up all our summit gear, like bigger down garments, etc.
“In camp 2 we stayed for three nights, while working up towards camp 3, braking trail, carrying ropes and fixing some of the way. It was a pleasure to work alongside a Shimshali fixing team at one point, awesome guys! The snow was at times up to my chest and above, crazy…
“Third morning we made our way to camp 3, slept a night, hung out a day as other climbers came up behind us. The next night Don Bowie and I decided to see how high we could push, maybe even to the summit. But the snow was very deeeep and honestly we were tired from working five days on the mountain, pushing the route to camp 3 with the HAPs, so we turned around near the first seracs, took a nap in C3 and came all the way down to basecamp.
“Now waiting out a storm and resting and eating… looks like we’re gonna get more snow!!
“We’re getting ready for a summit push. Tomorrow if the conditions are ok we leave for camp 2. The day after that to camp 3 where we will rest for a day and then push through to the top on July 17 or 18 Thanks to all the teams around to beat and specially to Don Bowie for all the work delivered. Yes we can.”
“Sending greetings from Pakistan, Karakoram range, where I reside at the moment at Broad Peak Basecamp (5051m). I am here with a very special mission – Terzyul14, a project dedicated to honoring the memory and raising awareness about Vladyslav Terzyul (that includes a documentary), the first and only Ukrainian alpinist to date who has been to the top of all of the 14 highest mountains in the world (above 8000m).”
“Sorry I haven’t been able to write for a long time, during this time I have performed second and third acclimatization performances. Additionally, there was a disruption at the 4 G mobile station located in the concord. Now I’m at base camp and mobile internet is working again. Over the past time, I walked the mountains well, I could conquer 7000 meters high, release the third camp and stay there. I think the acclimatization program ended with this. Now I have to wait for the air window to start the next ′attack′ attempt.”
“Asif Bhatti is safely back at Broad Peak basecamp after first rotation to Camp 1. Weather is bad today so he will resume action once things settle down.”
Paul Diac and Iulian Costan (Gasherbrum II)
“The boys are in BC today and tomorrow because of the bad weather, on 15, if the weather permits they will go up to c3, they plan to not descend into BC, respectively only in c1 where they left enough equipment.”
Summer Season in the Karakoram – 2021
Main Photo Credit: Muhammad Aamir Iqbal
