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Summit Build-up?We plan our summit attempt Half of us have been at BC for a while, time for action?
Denis at BC 14 JulyAmanda, Haruki and Gordon stayed at Camp 1, our new camp 1, now that there is space. Taqui went up the day before to move one of our Camp Half tents up and move the French Camp 1 tent down to create the camp. The tents are sited so that avalanches can't hit them, which is only true of perhaps half the spots at Camp 1. The forecast was bad; snow, and cloud, and that is what we got. 15 JulyThe Italian forecast is less accurate today, it should be snowing most of the day but is surprisingly clear. Amanda, Haruki and Gordon have taken advantage of this to move to C2 to spend some time acclimatising. Both forecasts predict an increase of the wind high on the mountain. The team is in good spirits, although we would like more progress reports on Chilli, as well as Fabien and Yannick (the only news we have is from France; they are OK and still in Skardu as far as we understand). The K2 stripMyself, Malte, Mike Farris, Olivier, Denis and Pierre-O visited the K2 strip to meet friends and also to replace the Iranian bottle of emergency oxygen we used. By coincidence we bought a good Poisk bottle (still in date!) from the solo Iranian climbing K2. The Casa Italia pyramid tent is huge, so big that they have 3 tents inside. There are no less than 4(!) Spanish expeditions, and a few others too. Everyone is socialising, waiting for the right forecast to mount an attack. |
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The K2 strip, note the Casa Italia pyramid, a mini K2. |
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16 JulyAmanda, Gordon and Haruki slept at C2 and had a windy night. Gordon is reworking the Camp 2 tent spots, that because we are using large tents, don’t sit well on the narrow ledges. Each tent in theory can easily hold 3 climbers but only two is realistic. Again the weather is better than the Italian forecast, but the jet stream winds have arrived, both on top of K2 and on Broad Peak. It is likely that the rest of the team head up the mountain tomorrow so this could be the last dispatch for a while, perhaps a couple of days, perhaps for more than a week. PlanningAs far as summit options go, like everyone else left here at Broad Peak (only a few teams) and on K2 (2 teams came to visit yesterday) we are just waiting on the weather. If the predicted high winds hit then hopefully these will clear some snow, both mountains are heavily loaded at the moment, and then we need a good weather wind to summit. The majority of the team left are capable of summitting.
Mike watches the jet stream turbulence on the very summit of Broad Peak Even with the reduced team size, we only just have enough tents, and will probably have to shuffle a few around, we are also planning to build snow caves at perhaps two high camps. We also have to plan our mountain food carefully, and gas. If we buy some more at BC we will have enough for an extended push. One of the last factors that is not in our favour is the moon. Often the weather changes dramatically around the full moon, but this is only 31 July. We are planning carefully with safety in mind - we have an experienced team, PLEASE DON'T worry! WE may be out of contact for 3-4 days, perhaps a WEEK or more. No email while climbing the mountain, we have more important things to do. |
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© Jamie McGuinness - Project-Himalaya.com - updated 16 Jul 2004 |
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