Update: Roeland van Oss, Mark Sheen and Court Haegens started
their ascent towards Camp 2. Yesterday a discussion took place between Wilco and
the Frenchman Hugues and his two High Altitude Porters. Wilco asked for the
assistance from the two HAP’s to fix ropes. The moment they had to make that
decision the weather was very bad and a lot of snow had already accumulated.
Hugues and the HAP’s refused their cooperation to start today. Starting later
was not an option for the Norit K2 team. Team 1 had to start today to climb in
front of team 2 that will start tomorrow and will try to reach the summit. The
good weather window is very short. Starting later would mean that the summit
team could encounter problems at the end of the good weather window.
Team 2 are: Pemba Gyalje Sherpa, Gerard McDonnell, Jelle
Stalleman, Cas van de Gevel and Wilco van Rooijen. Tomorrow morning they will
start their ascent, picking up the lightweight ropes below camp 1. Those ropes
they will use negotiating the Bottle Neck. The heavyweight ropes are now located
in Camp 1. Team 2 will fix the heavyweight ropes on their descent.
June 30 update: Saturday june 28 th is a miserable day
in K2 BC. The Norit K2 team used the good weather window to establish Camp
3 and started fixing ropes towards Camp 4. The weather forecast showed bad
weather during the weekend. After consulting our meteorologist and
studying the latest weather forecast there’s a glimmer of hope at the end
of this week.
The first planned summit attempt would be July 18th.
That night it’s a full moon and that’s an advantage. Looking at the
weather forecast Wilco realizes that this coming weekend could well be
their first opportunity. Although the whole route towards Camp 4 is not
ready, the Norit K2 team decides to go for it!
Wilco discusses the strategy with the entire team. The
strategy will be to start with team 1 whose task it will be to climb to
Camp 3 and the next day will finish the fixed ropes towards Camp 4. The
next day team 2 will ascend and stay at camp 4 to start their summit push
on Saturday morning.
Court volunteers to climb in team 1 together with
Roeland. Ropes are available from Dave Watson and Wilco will ask for the
assistance by the two High Altitude porters from the Frenchman Hugues.
Mark Sheen does not feel he is ready for a summit attempt and will join
team 1.
Cas and Jelle tell Wilco they want to help fixing ropes
towards Camp 4 together with Pemba. Wilco thinks this is not a good idea.
He wants to save Pemba and Cas to join him on the summit attempt.
Jelle asks if it’s possible to join the second team on
their summit attempt. There's only one problem. There’s not enough room in
the two small tents in Camp 4. Pemba offers help. He will sleep in Camp 2
and join the summit team early in the morning.
If the weather forecast proves to be accurate the summit
attempt will be on Saturday morning starting at 1 at night. If it proves
to be bad weather or the conditions are not right both teams will descend
and have another try at July 18th.
Two teams.
Team 1 Court, Roeland, Mark and two HAP´s . They will
start on Tuesday morning Their task is to climb to Camp 3 and finish
fixing ropes towards Camp 4 on the shoulder where the Abruzzi route
converges with the SSE route.
Team 2 Wilco, Cas, Gerard, Pemba and Jelle. They will
start on Wednesday. Their task is to go for the summit !
Asghar Ali Porik
M/s Jasmine Tours
Transit Camp: House #15, Street #15, Garden Town, Near Khanna Bridge,
Islamabad.
Site: www.jasminetours.com