Dispatch #10: Today
is our sixth rest day in a row, since we returned
from our acclimatization climb on Broad Peak. We've
just had four days of snowy, windy and cold weather.
Yesterday was the first day the sun came out.
We received some bad news on the 21st, when a Liason
Officer from the Tibetan team fell from just below
Camp 2 down to the base of mountain. He died
instantly. The LO, who had elected to climb with the
Tibetans, was a captain in the Pakistani military.
All the expeditions came to the assistance to carry
the body back to base camp.
Many expeditions have become discouraged with the
weather and the latest death, and have decided to
abort K2. The Tibetans, both remaining Spanish
teams, and Henry Todd's international team are all
leaving in the next few days. The only teams left
now are the Mexican-Spanish, Japanese, and our small
camp: Simone Moro (heading for Broad Peak tomorrow),
Charlie and Christine (who are all on Henry's
permit).
The Japanese have left base camp today for the
summit of K2, and over on Broad Peak a Korean team
has started for that summit, as well. We plan to
start up K2 tomorrow ourselves. The weather doesn't
look too stable with high cirrus clouds forming, but
we will go up in any case, and see what happens. We
do receive weather forecasts here via email, but the
forecasts have proven to be very inaccurate, so it
is tricky to judge when we should begin climbing.
Ideally we need about five days or so of good
weather for a summit attempt, but lately we have
only seen short periods of good weather - a day or
so at the most. In any case we will now go up and
get some climbing done.
