After four exciting, beautiful but also exhausting days, we returned to our advanced base camp (ABC) at the lower part of the K2 north pillar on Friday afternoon (8th July). We are now planning
to rest at this camp, which is also called ‘Italy Base Camp’ (4,650m), for a few days and are hoping to get a break in this extremely changeable weather here. Since we arrived at the Chinese Base
Camp (3,900m), a lot has happened.
First of all, the camel herders assisted us tremendously to get to the Italy Base Camp (the name of the camp stems from the successful 1983 Italian expedition, which was led by Agostini di
Polenza). Unfortunately we were not as lucky with our two low-altitude porters, who were supposed to help us reach the ‘proper’ advanced base camp at 5,050m. After our first carry, which
admittedly was pretty tough, the two quit their job telling us that work at Muztagh Ata was a lot easier. Without their help, it would have cost us too much time and energy to set up our ABC at
5,050m, and so we decided to put it lower at 4,650m – about half way up the side moraine of the K2 Glacier, which stretches about 20 kilometres from the foot of the mountain towards the
North.
The eight Kyrgyz camel herders were even kind enough to help us carry some gear to the real ABC, which has now become our deposit camp.
After the camel herders had left us we were stuck in bad weather for three long days. As we do not get satellite connection at this side of the K2 Glacier, we set up a little communications tent
on the East side of the moraine – our only connection to the outside world. The two Kazakh members of our expedition affectionately call our email excursions, which involve half-an-hour’s walk
over hilly and stony moraine, a ‘visit to Anastasia’! It is quite an effort to get to our Internet Café and as nobody serves us coffee there we have to take our own in thermoses! However, the
views into the Shaksgam Valley are a well-earned compensation for the exhausting excursion.
On 5th July, the weather improved and we ascended to our deposit camp from where we continued to the foot of the incredibly impressive north pillar of K2. All of us were weighed down by extremely
heavy rucksacks. We set up our Camp I about five-minutes walk away from the beginning of the pillar at an altitude of around 5,300m, which is an interesting height as it is the usual altitude for
a base camp of any other 8,000m peak.
The next morning, Darek, Tommy and Gerlinde descended to our deposit camp to pick up some gear that needed to be carried up to Camp I. In the meantime Maxut, Vassiliy and Ralf took 500m of fixing
rope and anchors to the 250m-high gully. This mixed climbing in perfect conditions really made this excursion a lot of fun. At noon we all reunited at Camp I, and everyone was feeling very
content about their day.
On 7th July, we all went back up with very heavy rucksacks. Especially Vassily but also Gerlinde took the climbing lead on this amazingly beautiful day. The climb started off on an increasingly
steep snowy ridge, which offers amazing views of the K2 Glacier, and then turned into a challenging grade V rock climb. At 6,200m, we decided to divide our labour: Maxut, Darek and Tommy built a
small platform, which we will use on our next ascent; Gerlinde, Vassily and Ralf fixed the rope on a 100m-long traverse. Vassily and Gerlinde continued climbing for another 100 metres to about
6,300m on pretty tough rock while Ralf exchanged all ice screws on the traverse with Abalakov threads. After a 1,000m abseil and about 13 hours after we had left, we returned to our camp and felt
very pleased about our good teamwork. Tired but content we went to sleep very early that evening.
As predicted by the weather forecast, it started to snow heavily during the night. Nevertheless, we wanted to make the most of the day and descended to our deposit camp to carry fixing material,
tents and ropes to Camp I. When we returned to ABC after these four exhausting days on Friday afternoon, we were pretty tired but confident about our climb. Now we are planning to rest and
recuperate for a few days and are hoping for another weather window to arrive soon.
Gerlinde, Ralf and the rest of the K2 team are sending you warm regards from a snow-covered base camp
© TEXT G.Kaltenbrunner/R.Dujmovits | TRANSLATION Billi Bierling
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