Nicholas Rice: Broad Peak Dispatch

2007 Broad Peak Expedition

Dispatch Twenty-Nine: July 8th, 2007

Day Twenty-Nine: Rest Day At Base Camp

Today, I woke up at 8:00am and had a long leisurely breakfast with the Mexicans and Spanish. We discussed the possibilities as to different strategies for our summit bid and knowing that the weather was expected to be good from the 10^th on for three or four days, we decided to rest a day and proceed up the mountain for our summit bid on the 11^th if possible. We decided on this delayed departure because we knew full well that a couple hundred people would be leaving Base Camp for Camp I and II on the 10^th and this meant a very dangerous number of people would be on the poorly placed fixed lines to Camp I. The fixed lines are attached to rock pitons on the rock face and when people improperly use these fixed lines as more than just a belay, they inevitably pull down rocks which gain speed and potentially strike climbers lower on the slopes. After deciding on this strategy, I unpacked my gear, had a shower, and did some laundry. We had lunch, chatted some more, read books in our tents, and waited out the horrible weather outside. The forecast I had received was spot on. High winds and snow gripped the upper half of Broad Peak and K2 all day. Only a few brief breaks in the clouds provided us with a view of the heavily snow-burdened upper slopes of Broad Peak.