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2008 K2 and Broad Peak Expedition

Dispatch Fifty-five: July 24th 2008

Day Fifty-five: French Leave BC; Busy Day in K2 BC; Snow Continues

This morning, I woke up and headed over to the Serbian tent to have breakfast with the Serbian Abruzzi Spur team and their climbing federation president. Afterwards, I bid farewell to Yannick, Patrick, and Christian as they started the trek down to Concordia. After this, I shifted my tent as it was on a pedestal of ice almost five feet high, and then got to laundry, which I had neglected for quite some time, making it quite a formidable task. A few hours later, after a visit from the French Broad Peak expedition, we all worked on moving the mess tent to the platform that we had been working on for about a week. Once this was finished, Hugues and I finally relaxed and started working on our computers in our new “office”. As the French have left, we now have a very large mess tent with two tables, and only three members. Therefore, Hugues and I decided to designate one table for eating and the other for working. Snow continued to fall all afternoon, with short breaks of sunshine. My laundry will definitely take a few days to dry. Thankfully, we have four more days in base camp to wait for our weather window. After lunch, we worked on organizing all the things in the mess tent. I rifled through my duffels to ensure that I had taken up all the equipment that I would need for my summit bid. Hugues and I were surprised to learn that the three French gave all their food to the Norwegian, after helping themselves to all of the special food that we had brought from home and promising us some specific items. But it is also surprising that they decided to head down when a weather window of eight days is presenting itself in such a short time. I am sure they have their reasons.

 

In Photos:

Left: Qudrat and Friends prior to his departure this morning for Skardu

Right: Broad Peak shrouded in clouds viewed from Base Camp