Nicholas Rice: Broad Peak Dispatch

2007 Broad Peak Expedition

Dispatch Ten: June 19th, 2007

Day Ten: Day Two of the Trek: Jhula to Paiju

Today, we woke up at 4:00AM and headed out at 5:30AM. Mauricio and Badia had left promptly at 5:00 so as to avoid the heat, so Jorge and myself left as soon as we had eaten a few pieces of toast and gotten our loads prepared. We could tell from the start that the day was going to be a hot one. There were no clouds anywhere and the morning was quite warm. We struggled past convoys of mules and clouds of dust for a few hours, where I took a break to make some phone calls and have my lunch. When I checked my watch, I noticed that the temperature was at 42 degrees Celsius and rising. I arrived at camp a few hours later. We noticed an argument breaking out between our cook and some other porters. Turned out that someone had apparently made a reservation for the site we were setting up. However, since we had already paid, we were allowed to stay. After we were situated and our bags had arrived, I ran into my cook from 2005, the AMICAL cook from 2006 and our assistant cook from 2006, as well as two of my sirdars from 2006. It’s crazy how many people you come to know when you climb here every year. I had tea with each of them, had dinner and tried to get to sleep in the midst of the porter dancing and singing.