July 20: The weather forecast isn’t good for a number of days, so don’t expect too much activity from us. Fredrick, Chris K., Chhiring, and Eric spent an uncomfortable night at C3 before descending a couple of days ago. The route up the Black Pyramid is long, and we’re happy to finally have a foothold on the upper mountain. Mike, Chris W., and Paul are waiting on a weather window to get in a couple of nights at C3. All climbers are in BC now. The group that trekked out reached Islamabad a couple of days ago... Mike

Earlier: Here’s a short report. As the Magic 8 Ball says, “Things may become clear shortly.”
Tim Horvath has left for home to attend to some personal matters. We’ll really miss Tim’s experience on the mountain. He departed with Kirsty (who trekked to Base Camp with Paul) and both were escorted down by Taimur, our trusty LO. They should be back to Skardu in the next couple of days.
As for the rest of us, we’ve split into two groups: Chris K., Fredrick, Chhiring and Eric form one team while Chris W., Paul, and Mike form the other group. We had to do this because there are simply not enough tent sites available on the mountain. The photo attached shows the best tent site available at Camp II (6700m, 22,000 ft). The ‘campsite’ is a 30 degree slope, and the stuff you see sticking out of the platform is bits of old abandoned tents. We can’t get in enough tents at either Camp 1 or Camp 2 to handle more than 4 climbers at a time. (You may be able to see a telephoto of Camp 2 if you go to the expedition web page and navigate to the route description).
All of the ‘climbing’ is on fixed ropes so far. Even so, the route is not an obvious ridge. We follow snowfields, rock ribs, and generally weave our way up through fairly featureless terrain
Chris W., Paul, and Mike spent four nights on the mountain from June 11-15, acclimatizing at Camps I and 2 during some windy weather. The other group is on the hill today, having spend last night (June 16) at Camp 2. We are really hoping they are pushing for Camp 3 today, as the weather appears excellent from Base Camp.
The other teams that arrived earlier than us are thinking about a summit attempt in a few days, assuming the weather forecast holds. It’s unlikely that any of our team could participate as we are behind the other groups in acclimatization. But who knows? Each climber will make his own decision.
As we spend more time on the mountain, there will be longer intervals between blog posts. We’ll try and keep you up-to-date as well as we can.
Mike

Earlier: In the last few days, most of the teams on both the Abruzzi and SSE Spur have agreed to cooperate to increase the chances of a successful summit attempt. There have been two meetings in which the teams decided who would fix rope above C4, what gear would be needed above Camp 3, and who would supply the gear. This lead team will be made up mostly of high-altitude porters from Nepal and Pakistan, and most will be using oxygen. A weather report today has some teams prepared to start a summit bid on July 21, though they are awaiting additional forecasts to confirm the summit weather window.

Teams are also hoping to summit Broad Peak and Gasherbrum I and II over the next two days. The winds will be the deciding factor.

Earlier: Unstable Weather: July 10th, 2008 : July 10: Greetings! We’ve been sitting through many days of unstable weather, which is the norm on K2. We’ve been making forays up the hill to sleep a night or two at Camp I, but bad weather has kept us from getting much higher since our last report. Today, three climbers are hoping to sleep at C2 and another will stay at C1. Tomorrow, the rest of us will climb to C1 and then spend a couple of nights at C2. The goal right now is to acclimatize to Camp 2 altitude and sleep at Camp 3 over the next couple of weeks, which will prepare us for a summit attempt. Still a long time before any summit attempts from our team. Most of the team helped re-establish the mess tent one morning. The ice melts out and you have to reset all tent platforms every couple of weeks. We moved lots of rock and the newly pitched tent is better organized and seems to be more spacious. All other teams are waiting for good weather as well. We wander between the various Base Camps, checking on the weather reports and picking up bits of information. Patience is the key to this game, and we have a month left at K2 to get the job done. Next time, I hope to have more action to report. The weather looks better for the next two days, so we’ll try to make good use of it. Mike

July 5: We are experiencing a beautiful day, and all members are in Base Camp. We have established a tent at Camp I, and yesterday two members reached the site of Camp II and stashed a tent and other gear. It was too windy to do more, but they did a great job just getting there.
Today we plan to take a team photo (since all members are now here) and strategize for the upcoming days. Getting all members acclimatized and Camp I and II established with two tents each are the top goals. The weather forecast is decent but you never know on K2!
The whole team was assembled in BC, so we had a big planning session–quite productive. The trick is to get the right gear to the right camps at the right time, and to let everyone have plenty of time to acclimatize at the various camps. We now know our jobs the next few days, so there will be a lot of activity on the hill until the weather goes bad.
Please note that we can’t keep you posted on the exact movements of every climber every day. We agreed to function as a team–not individuals– so it really doesn’t matter who does what, as long as we continue to make progress. Everyone is healthy and motivated, though the goat stomach we had for lunch tested even the most grizzled veteran. It was actually quite nice smothered in chiles.
Mike

Earlier: July 2nd, 2008 : July 2: Our long-awaited cargo arrived yesterday. We had spent the past three days scanning the moraine below our camp for porters, much like sailors used to search for land from the crow’s nest of their ship. 4000m of rope, ice screws, snow stakes, pitons, and lots of other group food and equipment now crowd our mess tent. We expect Paul and Kirsty to arrive this afternoon, so our team will finally be complete. Yesterday saw Eric, Chhiring, Fred, and Chris K. getting halfway to Camp 1 after sleeping in Advance Base Camp (ABC–get used to the acronyms!). Today, Fred and Chris K. are attempting to reach C1 and get a tent in place. Tim and Chris W. have carried gear to ABC in support of Fred and Chris K. and will stay the night in ABC. Tomorrow they will head up to C1. Mike will finally be able to organize his food etc. (much was in the cargo shipment) and will head up to ABC this afternoon and stay the night. Our short-term goal is to establish two tents at C1. The weather is predicted to be good for the next few days, after several days that saw alternating sun, clouds, and snow showers. We have hopefully worked out the political issues that occur when multiple teams attempt the same route. A fuller account of this is best left for post-expedition discussion. These issues are a normal part of climbing a big and crowded mountain these days.

Earlier: International K2 Expedition: Saturday, June 28. Today most team members carried loads to Advanced Base Camp through light snow and wind. We hope that our tardy air cargo arrives within the next two days, as we have no tents or rope for the mountain. Paul Walters is scheduled to arrive in a day or two, bringing the team to full strength.

We continue to meet the other occupants of K2 Base Camp and hope to develop good relationships with the other climbers on our route (Abruzzi Ridge). Most of us are also renewing old acquaintances forged on other mountains.

Our goal is to climb K2 without the use of supplemental oxygen and high-altitude porters. Since other teams have been in BC for a while,

they are already placing fixed ropes on the climb. Most of this work is being done by Sherpa and Pakistani high-altitude porters hired by the Korean and Serbian teams working on the Abruzzi. Mike