Summit Attempt

Summit Push and Wrap Up

July 23

The night of the 10^th we were waiting on a weather call from Jim, the weather guy in Jackson. The reports from the Spanish, from Chamonix, and from the Italians were all varying. So, we were going to make our call based on the final American forecast. Griber talked to him at 10pm, and based on the weather feedback, we made the decision to go.

We left BC two hours later, at midnight, in steady snowfall for a direct push to Camp 2. It was fairly smooth going, and after a very brief pit stop at Camp 1, we arrived at Camp 2 mid-morning. The weather was rough throughout the day with whiteout conditions prevailing on our final approach to Camp 2. We were hoping that by climbing to and through the lower camps in the bad weather that we would get our clear weather window for Camp 3 to the Summit in a couple of days.

As we climbed through the night and the snowfall, once at Camp 2, we were forced with another decision- make the move to Camp 3 or stay one more night at Camp 2 and make the summit push through Camp 3 the next day. The group opted for the former, and a better rest at 21,000ft. It was a long rest day and we were eager to get moving as we hunkered down in the tents and planned for an early am start to Camp 3.

Sunday the 13^th we awoke around 4am and headed up to Camp 3. The weather was marginal, and we pushed through the cold and snow once again to our tent at 3. Once there, we again had to redo the original tent platform and then dig out another spot for our other VERY small tent. We squeezed 3 people into each two person tent- warm but very, very tight. We would spend the next 3 nights at Camp 3 during our summit bid process.

Due to heavy snowfall, and the need for able bodies to break trail to the summit, we opted to make an attempt the following night. The 14^th turned out to be a beautiful day, with avalanches careening around us, and several other teams making their way to Camp 3. We had committed to leaving the night of the 14^th and aimed to summit the next morning with an agreed predetermined turnaround time of 2pm.

As we started assembling our gear, packed in like sardines at 11:30pm that night, the snow and the wind pounded our tents. We had committed to leaving, and with limited fuel and food reserves, our options were limited. By that point, all the other teams had backed out of the plan to move, but we pressed on.

Our two tents set in motion around 11:30 pm, and Griber and I headed out about 12:30am to start breaking trail. As he and I changed up lead on the initial slope, I flicked out the line and a small soft sluff cascaded down upon us- that was to occur several more times ahead. We were looking at a lot of new snowfall above. Kris and Hil followed up behind and we started leap frogging up the mountain. It was a very cold, very windy, and a very snowy effort.

We made our way to about 7400+ meters, regrouped, and made the decision to turn around. The avalanche danger was high and we were breaking trail in extreme conditions. After six hours of some serious work, we returned to Camp 3. On the return, Griber and I got some pretty nice turns on the last pitch back down to the tent, limited but worth it.

As we proceeded to get bombarded by unbelievable weather forces, every two hours or so, we had to dig out the tents, and though we felt safe in location, we were still concerned with wind transported snow crushing our very small tent spaces. It was an intense 24 hours back in camp 3…our plan was to be at BC the next afternoon, with another alpine departure planned for the next morning.

We rose at about 4am on the 15^th to a beautiful but cold morning. We had some additional concerns for the snow pack in our descent. Due to some frozen extremities on some folks, we got a later start then planned but headed down the lines safely.

Immediately out of Camp 3, we encountered thigh deep snow and deep trail breaking. Due to the conditions, we opted to ski the last 1/3 of the climb down into Camp 2. The snow was decent but we were wary of crevasses and of slide potential, not only for us, but for those potentially climbing below. Turns out, however, that no one chose to climb up from Camp 2 that morning.

Our packs were about 70lbs plus each coming down, as we cleared each Camp. The heavy loads limited our agility, speed and progress. Arriving to the lowers of Camp 2 and into Camp 1, we encountered severely isothermic snow. The crevasses had opened up significantly, and the farther we moved down from Camp 1, we found ourselves making big leaps across the open gaps. Each step was arduous as we punched through into our knees and deeper, worsened with the added weight. The temperature gradient continued to be extreme as we were below 0 degrees leaving Camp 3, and by the time we hit the lower glacier, it was well into the 90s.

Due to loads, timing, team health etc, we had to time our last push and this journey as we did. Though not summiting was a great disappointment, we all feel good about our efforts, and as climbing as a team. As Kris has mentioned- if we had endeavored only to climb, without the combined climb and ski goal, we may have been able to move quicker on our 1^st or 2^nd trip up to Camps 2 & 3, but then also lost some members in those bids. By the end of this trip, most of us had spent 4 nights at Camp 3 at 23,500ft, 3 nights at Camp 2 at 21,000ft, 5 at Camp 1, hauled our ski gear to 24,500ft+, and broke trail for most of our big efforts.

We headed out of BC on the 18^th. Our departure was preceeded by a garbage bonfire party and a final singing/dance session with the porters. Kris also pulled out a pretty fun fire trick to entertain the masses. The next few days we got our move on- It took us 2 weeks to get to BC from the States, and it took us 4 days to leave. We combined some long days of trekking (25+km) to make flights back from Skardu to Islamabad to home. The atmosphere on this return was much calmer for us, and temps much cooler with overcast skies and rain. We have befriended porters and are no longer such an anomaly for our foreign hosts. As we now sit in Islamabad having our first pizza (and beer in Muslim country) of the trip, we have some fond memories upon which to reflect.

Kim Havell

Great Effort

After great effort at skiing GII and unfortunate timing with the weather, the team is on their way out of the Karakoram Mountains.  They will arrive in Skardu on the 22nd after four days of hiking, drive two days to Islamabad and soon be on their way to their next destination – either home or to another expedition.

Back to base camp

The team returned back to base camp safely on Tuesday after almost a full week on the mountain. Dispatches from base camp to come soon…

Mountain Weather

July 13

The team just called via satellite phone with an update from Camp 3.  The weather window they were hoping for never materialized and due to dangerous snow conditions they had to turn back from their summit attempt at 7400 meters.  They have been waiting out a snow storm for the past couple of days at Camp 3.  Despite wishing they had a bit more food and better weather everyone is healthy and feeling good.  They plan to descend the fixed lines from Camp 3 and return to Base Camp in the next couple of days at which point they will send a full dispatch of the past week on the mountain.

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

End of the Road

Paiyu Rest Day

June 13

It is hard to comprehend the scale of the landscape here at Paiyu and even harder to explain what is like being surrounded by such huge mountains. Like the first time I walked around New York City in awe of all the skyscrapers, always looking up and seeing another building taller than the one you just saw. Paiyu sits at the toe of the Baltoro Glacier, the largest glacier outside the polar regions, almost 45 miles long.

Today is our first rest day on the trek to base camp, and our first opportunity to enjoy some of Oregon’s finest coffee. The Joe is working, and everyone is taking advantage of our time, washing clothes, taking pictures, talking with Porters and just enjoying the landscape.

Since arriving in Islamabad our schedule has been partly determined by the sun. Today is no different. The dry and rugged terrain offers few places to hide from the heat. The day’s productivity corresponds with your ability to hunt out the coolest shade. It’s hard to believe that of our 20-plus bags most are packed with specific cold weather gear.

So far the food has been amazing! Days away from fertile earth and we are eating fresh fruit and vegetables. French fries and fried chicken. Omelettes and cereal. Dedar, our cook, has ten years experience providing trekkers with the fuel it takes to move in these mountains, and every meal has been a treat.

Relentless waves of heat, proximity to any town and the massive size of the terrain make it clear why climbers consider the Karakoram to be very unforgiving. But so far the Pakistani and Balti people have been so friendly, the landscape is far more grand than I could have imagined and our expedition is off to a great start.

Kip Garre