Nicholas Rice: Broad Peak Dispatch

2007 Broad Peak Expedition

Dispatch Thirty-Five: July 14th, 2007

Day Thirty-Five: Rest Day at Camp; Dirk and Italian Climber Missing

Today, we woke up at 8:30am once again to a white base camp, had breakfast with our refreshed summitteer, and discussed further details of the summit effort. We speculated that we would see Dirk in Base Camp in the afternoon. Afterwards, I made some sat phone calls, and scheduled my precious time between my Broad Peak Expedition and my Shishapangma Expedition just 21 days after my return to the US. After this, I decided to do my laundry, contrary to the cold snowy weather outside. At lunch, we discussed our plans for our summit bid. I had received an update on my weather window stating that the bad weather would in fact change on Monday and that climbers were to be cautious on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday as there would be snow, high winds, and poor visibility. Taking this into consideration, we stayed with our plan to proceed upwards on Monday, with potential summit days being Wednesday and Thursday (leaving a contingency day in Camp III in case of AMS (a cute mountain sickness)). After this was decided, I returned to my tent to fix the mysterious problem that had arisen with my Solar Panel power system. Once this was resolved, I returned to the mess tent where all the Liaison officers had gathered to play cards. I discussed the absence of Dirk with the rest of the group and we decided to put out an emergency radio call to have anyone at Camp II check to see if he was in fact in his tent or if something had happened on his descent from the summit. This yielded nothing, as the radio call times are different for all expeditions. We were helpless to do anything else as sending someone else up in the bad weather was just asking for trouble. Afterwards, Badia, Mauricio, and myself went down to visit the Serbians in their camp. We talked with one of their members who had summitted and looked at his pictures. We then returned to our camp, saw the Georgian, and discussed his plans for a summit bid; they were the same as ours, as were many other groups (a blessing and a curse, as manpower is required to break trail to the summit, but a large number of people on the fixed lines presents a significant safety hazard). We then proceeded to the Spanish camp, where we chatted with the members and questioned whether they had any contact with the upper camps. We returned to our base camp around 5:00pm, and relaxed the rest of the evening.