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2008 K2 and Broad Peak Expedition

Dispatch Twenty-two: June 20th, 2008

Day Twenty-two: Stormy Rest Day at K2 Base Camp

Today, thanks to the poor weather conditions, Hugues’ Guide and Porter stayed in base camp rather than carrying a load to Camp I. The snow continued to fall all night, and we awoke to a white base camp, with both Broad Peak and K2 completely obscured by a thick mist. We had a leisurely breakfast at 8:30am again consisting of an omelet, pancakes, and chapatti. We all had showers and worked on our computers for quite some time. The weather went from hot to cold quite rapidly, making choosing the correct clothing quite difficult. We had lunch, which was made quite unpleasant thanks to the foul demeanor of our Liaison Officer, Imran Ahmed. He refused to eat the food that was served and insisted that the cook prepare a completely different dish, which he, yet again, barely touched. It is a good thing that in the past I have had quite pleasant experiences with LO’s, otherwise, I might come to the conclusion that all of the Pakistani military were pretentious, abusive, abrasive people who had no business being in the mountains. Thankfully, this is not the case, and I realize that this is an isolated case. After lunch, we worked on making the mess tent more level, and then visited the other camps to discuss the routes and their respective progress on them. After this, I sorted my high altitude gear, and prepared a load to carry to camp I (about 6,000 meters elevation). We had a long dinner and got an early night.