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2008 K2 and Broad Peak Expedition

Dispatch Twenty-one: June 19th, 2008

Day Twenty-one: Rest Day at K2 Base Camp

Today, we woke up at 8:00am, a luxury compared to the early mornings we have been having on the trek. Our cook made us a delicious breakfast; pancakes, an omelet, chapatti, and the choice of any of the coffees or teas that I had brought along. After breakfast, I decided to test my generator, seeing that the weather wasn’t exactly powering my solar array very efficiently. It started on the first rotation and continued to work perfectly with two laptops, a satellite phone, an mp3 player, and a BGAN modem plugged in all at once (all running I might add). I worked for awhile on my computer and helped Hugues make a website (I placed it in a sub-directory of mine) so his family and friends could get news from the expedition in French directly from him. This took all morning, and carried on through lunch and into the afternoon. Around 5:00pm, we finally had it up and running (very basic, but it gets the job done, and I might add, not a bad job considering that we did it at 5000 meters elevation). We were not so thrilled with a surprise visitor who came during lunch; our liaison officer, who had fallen ill at Urdukas, had decided to come up and stay with us for the entirety of the expedition. Hugues and I still haven’t decided which route we will attempt; the Cesan or the Abruzzi. The Cesan is more direct, but steeper and more technical, and joins the Abruzzi after the shoulder. The Abruzzi is longer, with four camps, and slightly less technical, and no one this season has gotten very far on it. The Norit expedition has apparently erected Camp III on the Cesan, so that route seems to be the more established so far. We will have to decide tomorrow, as we plan on carrying to Camp I the following day.