Camp 1 & 2, The Pee Bottle, and our Spanish and Italian friends.

June 30

From Base camp we have been hauling gear up to Camp 1 to begin our climb. On our first attempt to Camp 1 new snow slowed our travels and we decided to camp about an hour short of Camp 1. The new snow and hot weather made post holing really slow and taxing. The next morning we made it to Camp 1. We set up our tents, probed out our area and crawled into our tents to avoid the midday heat that has been getting so hot! It is amazing that it can snow and that water bottles can freeze at night and then the sun comes out and it gets so hot, probably close to 100 degrees in the tents. We have been draping out sleeping bags over the tents during the hottest part of the day to help keep things cool inside. After one night at Camp 1 we headed back to Base Camp to regroup and get ready to head back up. This is our program for now, I am guessing we will trek through the ice fall to Camp 1 about five times before we move to Camp 2, Camp 3 and for a summit push.

On our next trek to Camp 1 we brought tents and gear to set up Camp 2. Heading to Camp 2 might be the most technically challenging and is where we will see some fixed ropes. After meeting with some of the other climbing groups it was decided that we would help fix some ropes between Camp 1 and 2.

Waking up early was easy after spending most of the day in our tents hiding from the sun. By six we were heading toward the bottom of the face and feeling good about moving up. The bottom of the Gasherbrum 2 face is the steepest and most technical. Here, on a section called the Banana, there will be areas of fixed line so these sections will be safer to climb.

At the top of the Banana our team split into two groups. One group went higher to set up Camp 2 while Kris and I began working to re-fix all the rope below. I found it enjoyable and fun to help Kris and learn more about fixing lines.

But so far one of the biggest challenges has been the Pee Bottle. Having a bottle to pee in during the night makes tent life much more comfortable. Personally getting dressed up to get out of the tent in the middle of the night doesn’t work. In my tent at Base Camp aiming into my pee bottle doesn’t really present any problems. At Camp 1 stacked between two females the process is much harder. Staying hydrated is essential at altitude and that means you must empty your blatter more often.

Last night while visiting our comedic Italian friends the issue about pee bottles came up. First, I have to thank our Spanish friend Esther Decroiq and her Italian friends Gloria and Simone. They invited us over for some amazing cheese, salami and olives. Italian coffee and a few hours of entertainment. Italians always amaze me with their hospitality and quality. So when the pee bottle issue came up everyone stated their view. We have one non-believer in our group while our friends had a few. Opinions flew but none of them had any effect on my view. Team leader John Griber claims “ the pee bottle is just has important as your harness, mandatory for expeditions.”

We planned on heading back to Camp 1 tonight but the snowy weather might keep us at Base Camp for one more day of rest. Either way our next trip up should see us make Camp 3 and possibly spend the night there. If all goes as planned then we will come back to Base Camp for our final rest before we head up for a summit push.

Thanks for staying tuned in,

Kip Garre

Life at BC & Setting Camp 2

June 28

It is the 28^th and we are all back at BC enjoying the 1^st of 2 full rest days- the last 3 days have been extremely eventful.

The route to Camp 1 is a long stretch, requiring serious concentration due to the mileage and navigation through many “undoctored” snow fields. The next 3 sections are somewhat more direct. We are limited in personal mobility, having to travel in roped teams of two and three roughly 98% of the time due to the overwhelming amount of surrounding crevasses and severely broken terrain. Shuttling loads up has taken quite a bit of strength and coordination by all team members to prep for future higher camp travel. With 2 big pushes remaining, we are all currently resting, eating, and sleeping in BC.

The weather has been somewhat cooperative, aligning storms quite nicely with our returns to BC. We spend parts of each day repairing our tent platforms due to the glacial move, as avalanches cascade continually around us on the surrounding but safely distant peaks. The thunderous noise was quite a thrill at first, now it is more common place and we no longer crane our necks out our tents as often to watch nature at work.

We have all been feeling quite well and sleeping well. It has been encouraging to finally see the remainder of the route before us..most members of this team would agree that this expedition and this peak have presented some of the greatest challenges and elements of any trip to date.

At the expedition teams meeting on the 25^th, the fabulous Gloria announced that she will wear black, red, and green lingerie (a Italia) at each respective camp on the peak. We are very much enjoying getting to know her and the rest of the Italian team, and indulged in an incredibly generous Italian BC feast with them yesterday at their deluxe site. Their cribs are just incomparable.

Between 3-4am on the morning of the 26^th, our three rope teams headed to Camp 1. It was a beautiful morning and a smooth, serene trip with our 2^nd batch of heavy loads.

The excitement began the morning of the 27^th. We started with a bang, literally, to Camp 2. While heating a gas canister, an explosion occurred that ended up harming no one – just a sleeping bag & pad, and two stoves. But, it also startled the team in the tent, and those adjoining.

We roped up to advance the flat portion of Camp 1 to the start of the direct climb to Camp 2. A large Swiss team was ahead of us that slowed our progress up the route. We ended up divvying up tasks to beat the heat and the melting snowpack, that was rapidly disintegrating to isothermic conditions- a scenario that has been ever present and a concern on this trip.

The whole group reached the true Camp 2 together and subsequently divided up. Kris and Kip ended up re-fixing all the rope on the steep sections below, as the original lines consisted of cordelette (5-6 mil) poorly rigged to pickets- not good for the many jumars yarding on the rope. John, Hil, and I headed up to set up a higher Camp 2 at 21, 500ft (Camp 2.25). We are hoping this allows us to set up a higher Camp 3, with a shorter summit push. We set up two tents, adjacent to the Swiss and the “Vickers” team on a level col with astounding vistas to G1, the icefalls, and G4. It was quite a bit of effort to probe the entire perimeter, level, and set up tents.

John, Hil and I descended from Camp 2 around 11am. We caught up with Kris & Kip as they were finishing up the lines. As agreed to by all the expedition teams, we were contributing our fair share to the work load on the mountain (plus some)..our efforts were burning our group hard, as we are one of the first teams up, and doing a good chunk of general static rope carrying and fixing.

As John, Hil and I rapped the route, I reached Kip just as he and Kris got off the lines and were heading down the remainder of the route. As I followed moments behind them in the same path, while crossing a snow bridge, the snow broke away beneath me. I dropped about 15-20ft into a crevasse. Luckily, I landed on another very small snow bridge and on my feet. I yelled for help a few times, and as the soft snow floor continued to shift again beneath me, began self rescue. My ice axe was hooked in a lip above me, and so with little other choice, I stemmed up the walls, slowly punching in hand holds as I went. Pulling up and over the lip was a bit creepy but adrenaline pushes you through at times.

When I popped out, I saw John & Hil rapidly descending the fixed lines, and Kip and Kris were catching their breath from running back uphill at 21,000ft.

We all descended rapidly from there. John and Hil found extra rope on the route and joined up for the remainder of the descent. As the snow softened, Hil slipped in its thickness and slightly bruised some ribs on the blunt side of her axe, making it harder to breath at this elevation. It is much better now but just another challenge..

We returned to Camp 1 pretty tired and spent the day recuperating as another snow storm rolled in, depositing about 8 inches overnight. Ingrid greeted us back at Camp, acclimatizing and watching the day’s events through binoculars. She also later prepped some freeze dried delicious blueberry cobbler for both our tents..Yesterday, we returned to BC in the continuing snowfall. We have two big pushes left. We plan to leave early on the 1^st to go to the eventual goal of Camp 3 and to set up everything for our summit attempt. Our clock is ticking on time, and we hope that the weather will cooperate.

Kim Havell

Regaining Strength

June 29

Well, I’m happy to report from a personal standpoint that I have now successfully made a venture out of base camp! I had the lovely misfortune of catching some type of bacteria at some point along the early part of our journey, became ill in Skardu for a few days, and took Cipro for a few days to combat the illness. It went away for about 4 days of our trek to base camp, and then apparently the Cipro wasn’t strong enough, because a day’s hike out from base camp, it came back with a vengeance, leaving me more or less tentbound when I wasn’t running to and from the toilet (i.e., canvas tent over rocks, if we were lucky enough to be at a camp). Yuck! After consulting with both a Pakistani army doctor who was here in base camp as well as a doctor that Kris knows in Bozeman (thank you very very much!), I started a course of Flagyl, which is, as Kris said, “the nuclear weapon of antibiotics.” Needless to say, it wiped out the bacteria, but left me feeling pretty weak and feeble for several days. I held down the fort at base camp while the rest of the team first went up the ice fall one day, and then a day or two later they all went up to establish camp one and stay there for two nights. I was feeling pretty helpless, but at the same time I knew I needed to just chill and recuperate; I was seriously not feeling like myself. Our guide and cook and various other members took great care of me, and trounced me repeatedly at our new favorite Pakistani card came, a bewildering swapping and stealing-type game called Bazaar. The team returned, and after a day or two of rest, I got to join them for the next foray, up the ice fall to camp 1. The ice fall is spectacular—a maze of contorted, sculptured ice formations, corridors, and pillars. We began hiking at around 3am, and it was quite surreal to be crunching through these ice formations while the sky began to light up, the moon and the stars disappeared, and finally the peaks began glowing orange. We took it slow and steady, and it felt great to be moving again after a long spell of being tent-bound. Arriving at camp 1 around 10am, we pretty much just hid from the sun in our tents all day, dined on scrumptious freeze-dried meals, and hit the hay at approximately 7:20pm. Woo-hoo! What a wild bunch, eh?

The rest of the group was up with a bang around 4 the next morning, and the ever tireless warriors that they are, they went up to camp two, some setting up tents at that camp, and others helping to fix ropes on the route. I waited at camp (because it was my first time at that altitude and everyone else had been there two previous times, we decided it would be better for me to just rest at camp one and acclimatize), melted snow for water, read, and watched the team through binoculars, proud of their progress and strength. It definitely feels weird to be so off the back, when everyone else already has more experience than me anyways, but I guess you can’t help it if you get sick—sometimes it just happens—I’m the only one on our team that had never been to Asia before, so perhaps my stomach just wasn’t as bomber. Hopefully now I’ll be on the same program as everyone; I totally appreciate their patience, support, and excellent care. For now, we’re in base camp and as it’s snowed several inches over the last day, we most likely won’t be headed up the mountain for at least another day and a half. Scrabble, anyone?

Ingrid Backstrom