K2 Tall Mountain Expedition
 
 
The team is finished with the Broad Peak ‘warm up’ climb. Overall, the team is having a good experience all around. Andy reached a new personal high altitude record, and Dave had some good skiing from an altitude of 7500 meters. The team is a bit disappointed that they didn’t get the summit, but they are comfortable that they made the right decisions to turn around when they did. They have worked out the details of what they need to do as a team of three and are a cohesive team ready for the challenge of K2. Chuck was the first back to Base Camp, as he was not feeling well after spending two days sick at Camp 2. Andy and Dave were at Camp 1 Friday night, packing up the rest of the gear to bring off the mountain. Chuck was working with their cook to line up someone to go up and help bring down a load of gear. One of the big differences between this expedition and previous Everest expeditions is the lack of high altitude porters. The team is carrying their gear up and down the mountain without assistance from porters and they have to remove gear taken up for a team of 4 with only 3 of them. They feel the effects of having to carry all their own gear at high altitude. The heavy loads are physically taxing and they are getting in greater physical shape, but it’s a lot of work. Broad Peak is really out of shape this year with the bottom part of the mountain a pile of rubble where it’s usually snow and ice. Then there are sliding rocks from people climbing above and rocks melting out of the glacier. At the top, the snow is deep and not as consolidated as usual.. Several climbers have been injured by rock fall this season and a few camera’s have been taken out of commission by rocks. The climbers typically carry their cameras slung over a shoulder and hanging in front of them for easy access. Several teams have summitted, although it’s unclear whether they reached the true summit or the false summit, which is 47 m. lower than the true summit. It’s not an insignificant distance between the false summit and true summit, especially given the high altitude and thin air. The snow beyond Camp 3 is knee deep, which is deep enough to significantly slow progress. The team’s cook has been coordinating the move of their camp from Broad Peak to K2 so the base is spread out between the two locations, but poised for an efficient move to the next location. They seem to be doing a great job of making international friends and sharing good eats and new food experiences with new friends. They were particularly impressed with the food carried up the mountain by the Iranians. They had a variety of food varying from vacuum packed shish kabobs to canned sheep’s head and an eggplant dipsimilar to baba ganoush. The downside for an expedition feasting like this is the cost and the garbage that needs to be removed from the mountain. If you pay enough sherpas and porters, a lot is possible! The three Iranian expeditions are all fully sponsored expeditions. There is more snow on K2 and there are routes on the mountain with fixed ropes. The team will assess the route options more closely once they are in base camp and can get information from other expeditions. Dave would like to climb the route that he is planning to ski so he can get a preview of the terrain and conditions. We will provide more information about the tragedy that occurred on K2 this weekend when the facts can be substantiated.
 
Onward to K2
Sunday, August 3, 2008