Norit K2 Expedition 2008 Moving up

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