Himalaya 2011 climbing season, Karakoram and Himalaya wrap-up /3/ – Week in Review.

It has been an unexpectedly action-packed week at ExplorersWeb. The winter summit of GII made waves with a very hard descent, and the situation in Egypt had our team scramble to find related explorers for comments. All ending well, time came to look to the future in an exciting 2011 Himalaya tech outlook published today. [...]

Karakoram Winter Expedition 2010/2011 wrap-up: GII summiteers back in BC, GI team at work on a new route.

(By Angela Benavides) Denis Urubko just checked in from Gasherbrum’s BC. The team is safely back after bagging the first winter 8000er summit in Pakistan – but only by sheer luck, the Kazakh said. Gerfried, Louis and Alex will set off towards a new route on Hidden Peak’s south face as soon as weather conditions [...]

Karakoram Winter Expedition 2010/2011 wrap-up: GII winter summiteers descending in the storm – stop for the night in C1.

(By Angela Benavides) GII winter pioneers Simone Moro, Denis Urubko and Cory Richards were unable to reach BC today due to a major storm hitting the mountain. They have however reached safely C1 for the night, according to RussianClimb. GI team members Gerfried, Louis and Alex are on watch in Base Camp, ready to help [...]

Karakoram Winter Expedition 2010/2011 wrap-up: Climbers safely back in C3.

(Angela Benavides) Finally, there’s further good news from Gasherbrum II: “We’ve found our tent in this terrible storm. That’s all. Tomorrow descent to BC. Thanks for the support,” Denis Urubko has just texted. Denis’ SMS was sent at around 4.00pm, Pakistan time – almost five hours after the Kazakh climber, together with Italian Simone Moro [...]