2002
PEACE CLIMB TO PAKISTAN'S KARAKORUM
RANGE
Hello
EverestNews.com, The weather has not been
cooperating. Weather conditions here are
variable. By variable here we mean that we get
every possible conditions all within the same
hour. This week in the beginning we have had a
lot of snow fall in evening and morning and then
it would get very warm in the morning and by noon
all the snow has melted. And the afternoon high
winds bringing all sorts of weather. The later
part of this week is extremely variable, we get
high winds, snow, sun, rain all within the hour.
All the weather reports say the weather is
bad. But yesterday the weather was perfect, sunny
and little wind. So the weather forecast for the
following days...variable. For now everything
looks good up to camp2, above this altitude there
is significant wind, we can see it but the weather
report say that there are 70mph winds.
Although we have
been stuck here in Base camp there has been some
activity. A Korean expedition arrived the day of
the last dispatch. Its an expedition of 6 men and
1 woman and two high altitude porters. It is lead
by Mr. Han Wang-Yong a very
veteran climber. If he summits
on Broad Peak it will be his 13th, 8000 mt summit. We
haven't really had a chance to speak with them.
Their camp is about 600 feet away and they began
climbing the mountain right away. The have
arrived at camp2 they are going well, all of us
here can't really believe their push, they have
not acclimatized at all.
Yesterday,
Fernando wanted to get more food up to ABC, so I
tagged along. I finally got to see all these
things they have been talking about. On our way
we met with Chris Warner a member of a K2
expedition, which Fernando had met last year at
Everest. The weather is even worse at K2 and they
have decided to "acclimatize" on Broad Peak, but
I think things are so bad there they might climb
Broad Peak instead unless K2 weather improves. So
now there are 3 expeditions on Broad Peak.
Today, we have
received very bad news. Arne, one of the Germans
has been acclimatizing up at ABC and today went to
camp2 and radioed in with the news. The three
tents that were there are completely covered and
crushed, of which one of them was ours. He
couldn't really tell to what extent they were
damaged. Right now we are not sure of what needs
to be done. This is the same tent that is needed
for the summit push at camp3. So now we are
without tent for camp2 and camp3
Alberto
 Dispatches
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