Miotk to return home

Marcin Miotk has packed his gear and is now headed for home. He was unsuccessful making a last attempt on K2 and his time merely run out for him to give it another go.

He made it up to C3 on K3. He felt quite good and felt he had the energy to make it up to the shoulder of K2. Then he had to make a decision to go further or not. The weather had worsened and the wind was blowing quite hard. Also he had no climbing partner. The others were well ahead of him.

This was going to be his last attempt for the year of climbing K2. He believed that with the worsening weather that he probably was not going to reach the summit of K2 anyway. The thought came to him to reach the shoulder of the mountain and go out on a high having reached as far as he could. But in the end he thought that would be foolish. The risk for merely making it to the shoulder and not the summit was not worth it.

Miotk’s plane leaves on the 7^th of August. So now he will be trekking out of the Karakorum.

Source: Marcin Miotk

Kinga Baranowska returns from C4

Kinga Baranowska has returned to K2 base camp after making an effort to get to the summit a few days ago. She went as high as 7800m. This experience was important to her for a number of reasons. She got acclimatized for a possible summit push later on. She will not be using oxygen so this was important.

Also she was able to setup C4 a little below where it is normally placed on the shoulder. Thus she will be setup with her camps and equipment to the top.

Source: Kinga Baranowska

Meagan McGrath comes back from C2

Meagan McGrath made it to C2 on K2 before heading back down to base camp. On the 26th of July she went up with a fellow FTA member and made it to C2. This gave them both acclimatization.

The original intention was to get to C3. But they heard that there was going to be poor weather conditions so were not sure how much further than C2 they would climb. They ended up climbing a couple of hundred feet higher than C2 before the weather worsened and they decided that it was not worth it. On the 27th of July they headed back down to base camp.

FTA lost half of their group on the 28th of July. This leaves only 4 members still there.

She said that Fabrizio Zangrilli arrived safely at base camp. On the shoulder of K2 the snow was thigh deep.

At the moment they are awaiting a weather window. It was raining when she was speaking.

Source: Meagan McGrath mp3

Korean expedition leaves K2

A large Korean expedition have called it quits on K2. They had commitments elsewhere so time ran out for them. They recently tried to climb K2 via the Abruzzi Spur, but the conditions proved to be very challenging.

Dijmarescu says winds stopped going further up K2

George Dijmarescu said that there were very strong winds that forced his expedition back to base camp a few days ago. They headed up and found that C2 was wrecked by the strong winds from the storms before they left on the summit attempt.

He is still hopeful and is resting at base camp. The weather outlook though is not good in the near future, he said.

Source: Everestnews

Kaltenbrunner discusses her recent summit attempt

Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner has updated her website to talk about her recent attempt to make the summit of K2. She made it to C4 on the shoulder of K2 before turning around.

On the 24th she set off with the following climbers: her husband Ralf Dujmovitz, Fabrizio Zangrilli, Fredrik Ericsson, Trey Cook and 3 Polish climbers from base camp.

Up to 7100m the conditions for climbing were good. There had been snow storms in the previous days with lots of winds. The wind had swept away alot of the snow so it made it easier up to this height.

The wind had removed much of the snow from here on, leaving them to climb on brittle rock from about 7500m. They had to be more careful climbing on this. This slowed them down considerably. She had in her mind a clear idea of what the climbing conditions would be like having been on this route many times before. But the wind had created climbing conditions that she had not encountered before here.

When they arrived at the shoulder, she discussed with her husband the possibility of  going for the summit later that night. But the weather changed and they decided it was best to go back down.

Kaltenbrunner was not aware that C2 on the Abruzzi Spur had been destroyed by wind. They were expecting to meet up with climbers from this route.

She is hoping to get other chances to go for the summit with good weather. At the moment it is just a waiting game. The weather forecast for the next several days is not ideal for climbing.

Source: Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner

Maxut and Vassily start K2 campaign K2

Maxut Zhumayev has started his campaign to climb K2. He sent an SMS to say that he was 6200m. He is joined by his long time climbing partner Vassily Pivtsov.

Maxut and Vassily Pivtsov only need to climb one more mountain to have climbed all 14 8000m mountains.

Source: Kazpatriot

Wilkinson writes book on 2008 K2 tragedy

Freddie Wilkinson has written a detailed account on what happened in 2008 when 11 climbers died on K2. The reason that he wrote it was that he felt the whole truth had not come out about the events. The book is called, “One Mountain, Thousand Summits.”

To get to the truth he believed that he needed to talk to the Nepali Sherpas who were there that day. 4 out of the 6 are still alive. He traveled so that he go and interview them. Because they are so well acclimatized compared to westerners they were thinking more clearly that day and thus could remember events better  than those around them.

What emerges, he says, is that there were too many climbers trying for the summit all at once. They also gave too much energy to reach the summit and had little to come down. It was a series of mistakes

He said that he went and interviewed the families of those that died on that day. He tried to see what impact it had on their lives.

Source: One Mountain, Thousand Summits

Kaltenbrunner arrives at base camp

Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner and her husband have arrived safely at base camp at K2. This is after they reached C4 – the shoulder – on the mountain and had to abort the summit push.

Source: Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner

Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner calls off K2 summit attempt

Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner has reportedly called off her summit attempt. She has been in contact with her people and said that it was not possible to go for the summit this time.

When they arrived at C4 it was too late in the day. To then get ready within hours for a summit push would not have been possible. The recovery time would have been too small. There had been difficult conditions with the snow and the wind climbing up.

At the moment she and her husband are on the way down to base camp.

Source: Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner