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2008 K2 and Broad Peak Expedition

Dispatch Fifty-six: July 25th 2008

Day Fifty-six: K2 Base Camp; Visit from Spanish and Daniele Nardi

This morning, we woke up at 8:00am and had breakfast at 9:00am. We asked the cook, since the three French have departed, to have breakfast at 9:00am, lunch at 1:00pm, and dinner at 7:00pm. Better to have the meals earlier as the nights are getting colder by the day, and the mornings are when we have the best weather during these stormy rest days. After a blissfully quiet breakfast, the weather broke a bit and I decided to have a shower. I finished my laundry, and then checked my email. Just before lunch, Daniele Nardi (Italian; From Broad Peak base camp) came up to visit us. We chatted for awhile about the summit weather, and a number of other topics. Around 20 minutes later, three Spanish, Alberto, Lina, and one other came to visit as well. We had lunch with all of them. The Spanish Team had gone down the day before yesterday to visit GIV Base Camp. They told us that if we had the time, we should go down and visit it, as it was quite different than either K2 or Broad Peak base camp. Lina and I went through our pictures of Morocco, and she refreshed my memory in terms of the names of many of the places we visited. Afterward, since Lina and I plan on going to Kilimanjaro for Christmas, Hugues showed us his photos from 2007. He was lucky as, in the six days he was climbing, there was only an hour of rain; also there was quite a lot of snow on the mountain; a rare phenomenon nowadays. I also spoke a bit to Daniele about going climbing in Chamonix together in the winter; as we are both good friends of Hugues’, we would also have a free place to stay.  We will have to send back and forth a number of emails to coordinate the dates, but I am sure we can make it work. Also, Daniele might go to Makalu next year in the spring as well so I might see him there as well. Around 3:00pm, Daniele and the Spanish started back to their base camp. Immediately after, the American broad peak expedition came to us to ask if they could send their photos using Hugues’ bgan. Since they agreed to pay for the usage, Hugues agreed. I composed the emails and compressed the photos as much as I could, but they still added up to over 8 gigabytes. We sent them off, and received the weather forecast. The wind speed changed a bit for our proposed summit day; enough that we may push back the summit day till the 1st instead of the 31st. Not a major change, however, we must keep our fingers crossed that the forecast doesn’t continue to change as we approach the summit window dates. Also, the Americans told me that the Norwegians found a body at the base of the Cesan Route that was dismembered (basically only a torso and head) with half the face pecked away by the crows. I wonder if this is the same body that I saw on my descent the other day from Camp II (surrounded by excited crows). It probably came down the route in the big avalanche that we were in on the 16th. Anyway, the Norwegian apparently put the body into a crevasse, something I doubt that I could move myself to do.

 

In Photos:

Left: Shaheem Baig and Hugues on my old tent platform with K2 in the background

Right: The Spanish, Nick, Daniele, and Hugues in the mess tent