Karakoram Summer 2009 expeditions wrap-up : Broad Peak summit watch, GIII attempt and incredible rescue debrief.

(K2Climb.net – Jul 17, 2009) Climbers on Broad Peak are expected to depart C3 for the summit tonight. Bids on K2 might follow next week. Veikka and Kazuya are among the few still holding on the Gasherbrums.

The attempt on GIII last week ended with an impressive rescue.

Broad Peak

Nearly 30 climbers reached C2 yesterday, planning for C3 today. Summit push will start midnight, weather pending.

Meanwhile, Iran’s Arash expedition members climbed to C1 on the peak’s SW side in a spell of good weather. A second camp is planned for tomorrow. “We have already fixed 1400 meters of ropes from BC at 4750m to 6000m through the last ten days.” Babazadeh told IMZ.

Nanga Parbat

Korean Go Mi-sun’s remains were retrieved yesterday and will be airlifted to Islamabad, Askari Aviation’s Lt. Col. Ilyas Ahmad confirmed to ExplorersWeb.

Gasherbrum III

Don, Guy, Bruce and Billy set off from BC towards GIII on July 6th, hoping to give the summit a shot by July 10th. Things didn’t go as planned though. Bruce Normand became sick at C4 (7,300m) on the night before the team’s summit push. His state worsened through the following day, while a storm unfolded outside – by the second night the situation became critical.

“Bruce struggled to remain conscious throughout the evening and by the night of the 10th he was drifting in and out of consciousness – outside the winds were howling and visibility had dropped to zero,” Bowie recalled. “The last O2 sat measurement I took in the night for Bruce was a staggeringly low 37%. I congratulated him for officially breaking the Guinness World Record for having the lowest oxygen sats and still being alive. He didn’t laugh.”

Read all about the emergency descent in a blizzard with a semi-unconscious Bruce in Bowie’s 3-part debrief debrief (last part to be posted today).

K2

“We are planning to head back up the mountain in two waves to try and fix to C3 (7200m approx) over the weekend, as the weather will hopefully be good enough for a few days,” Jake Meyer reported from K2 BC yesterday.

Jorge Egocheaga and Martin Ramos are also headed from BC to C3 in one push tomorrow. “That will be our last acclimatization trip before the definitive summit push – which could be launched in a weather window expected next week,” Martin said.

Gasherbrum I

While several big teams have packed up and gone home, Veikka & Kazuya are ready to sit out and wait for their summit chance – no matter how long. “They are taking it easy and just relaxing at the Gasherbrum base camp, while they wait for the right climbing weather,” home team’s Tammisuo reported.

* Previous story  : – https://himalman.wordpress.com/category/karakoram/

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Karakoram Summer 2009 expeditions wrap-up : Gasherbrums Turn Back Teams, More On Go Mi-Sun.

The Karakorum climbing season is evolving quickly in no small part because of the weather conditions there. While many of the teams are remaining patient and hoping for the best, others are electing to call it a day and head home for the year. Take for example the Jagged Globe team, who were hoping to summit Gasherbrum II, but have now decided it is time to go home. They blame the shifting jet stream that has brought a ton of snow to the mountain and are now preparing to leave base camp on the weekend. Apparently they won’t be the only ones fleeing the Gasherbrums, as ExWeb is reporting that other teams are planning on packing it in for the season too. 

Don Bowie and the rest of his crew having been struggling away on G3 for the past few weeks, and he posted the first of his summit bid dispatches today.

Over on Broad Peak, the summit bids are underway for the Field Touring Alpine team, who are on their way to Camp 2 today and hope to top out on Saturday. From the sounds of things, there is a mass summit push underway, with nearly every climber on BP giving it ago. Winds are expected to die down tomorrow, opening a weather window through the weekend.

Snow continues to fly on K2, but the weather is also said to be quite warm in base camp. The climbers are still finishing up their acclimatization process for the most part, while Kazakh climbers Maxut Zhumayev and Vassiliy Pivtsov have just arrived in camp and well be climbing under the same permit with Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner, who is going for her 13th 8000m peak.

Finally, ExWeb posted a story a few days back that shed more light on the death of Korean climber Go Mi-Sun. In a dispatch sent out from Joao Garcia, we learn a lot more about the conditions on Nanga Parbat and what led to the tragic fall that took the life of Miss Go. Joao doesn’t pull any punches when he explains how the process for fixing the lines worked this year, and how a certain Austrian team didn’t really pull their weight. It was because of them that the lines were removed between Camp 2 and Camp 3, which led to Miss Go not being roped in when she slipped and fell. Joao stops short of accusing the other team of being responsible for her death, but he makes it clear how he feels about the whole incident.

There is another report today on the state of climbing in Korea, where a culture of competitiveness has built up. ExWeb received word from someone in Korea that talked about the rivalries between the mountaineers, in this case Miss Go and another female climber named Miss Oh. It’s a rather revealing look at the drive to be “first” in some capacity in the mountains.

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