Gerfried Goschl: K2 2009: More pictures

Earlier: Sepp Bachmair, Louis Rousseau and Gerfried are in the basecamp of K2 preparing their journey home. They are exhausted, the hard work through the deep snow costed them lots of energy. On friday they will leave the basecamp over Gondora- La to Skardu. We are all very happy about their healthful return!!

Earlier: All mountaineerers are on the way down. At 3 o'clock Gerfried and Co. decided, to go down. Gerfried: �Too much snow and the advanced time, there was no chance to reach the summit.�

After a very short sat-phone call with Gerfried, I can tell you, that Gerfried and approx. 8 other mountaineerers are at the end of the bottleneck-traverse at 8250m. They are slow, because they have to fix the dangerous passages. Gerfried estimates: � 4 more hours to the top.� Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner is also with them, Sepp Bachmair turned. More information as soon as possible�

Earlier: Sepp, Luis, Christian and Gerfried are in Camp 3 (7380m) building up their tents. "It was very windy today", Gerfried reported. The Kasachs, Santiago and the American climbers are approximately one hour before their tent place on the shoulder. They are in sat- phone contact, to transport the latest information. Gerfried: "It looks much better than one week before, they reported."

In less than 10 hours Gerfried and Co. will start the summit push. Gerfried: "At 1.00 o'clock in the morning we will start, so keep your fingers crossed once more!!"

Earlier: Gerfried and Christian have already reached Camp 2, after a 6,5 hour walk. The weather is very good, blue sky, only a little bit windy. Louis and Sepp are shortly before the camp. Gerfried is in the tent, melting some snow, so that they have enough to drink when they arrive in the camp. Gerfried: " It looks very good, my body feels physically strong, with a little bit luck and teamwork we can reach the top." Tomorrow they will climb to Camp 3, as they usually planed, then Gerfied is calling once again

Earlier: Values of friends, after our failed attempt last Sunday on 7700m in the avalanche dangerous part under the shoulder of the K2 we recovered in the last days from the strains. We exterminated and to have us mentally to the mountain stopped large quantities of food. Today I, as usual before an ascent at a 8000er, have still extensively mean bodies cleaned, in order to enter the place of the God's as cleanly as possible. My luck potato, which I would like to deposit at the summit, is already in the jacket in camp 3, the picture from Hannah and Heike always is with me in the backpack. After we got very good weather forecasts of Charly Gabl and Muhammah Hanif, we denied ourselves with the other expeditions. Our common summit day should be now 4 th of August. The groups use different tactics. Thus already started on the Abruzzi route the Americans, Kasachen and Russian on 31 July. Santiago, Kim and its Sherpas and Gerlinde together with the Americans on the Cesen route today. Louis, Sepp and I start as the last together with Christian from the basis camp around 5:00 clock local time directly to camp 2 (6680m) around Monday camp 3 (7380m) to reach tomorrow morning here. From there out we want to start early, on the shoulder (camp 4, 7900m) Gerlinde, Maxut, Sergue, Vasily, Santiago, Fabrizio, Kim, Pemba, Mingma, Dave, George and Ali to meet and together with them the most dangerous section, which bottle neck under the Serac, fixed and to ascend further. Rarely the K2 was turned on by such a experienced exactly team correct in the order of magnitude. Together we have to book approx. 75 8000er summits. Now it will hold really excitingly and I please you firmly us the thumbs. With something luck we can stand in few days on the summit of the K2 (8611m). My Mrs. Heike will as of tomorrow update again and again! Love of greetings from the basis camp of the K2 (5050m) Gerfried and team

Earlier: After a short telephone call with Gerfried I can tell you, that all climbers reached Camp 3 (7380m). The weather isn't very stable, it's very cloudy, the sight is quite bad. Tomorrow at 01.00 they will start the summit push.

So keep your fingers crossed once again!! :-)

Yours,
Heike

Earlier: Gerfried reports Wednesday from the base camp of K2: all goes well. In the base camp, the team also meets on old friends: Skyrunner Christian Stangl and the Spaniard Jorge Egocheaga. Jorge und Christian Jorge and Christian together with Louis Rosseau, Sepp Bachmair and Gerfried the ascent on Friday begin.

Editorial note: No mention of the claimed summit by Jorge.... this past weekend, maybe a bad report??

The other four members of the team - Joelle Brupbacher, Martin Ramos, Quintero Santiago, and the carrier Qurben already have in the past few days and weeks great preparatory work and the Abbruzzi route up to Camp 3 well established. The group is currently in camp 2 and camp breaks Friday to 3 on.

owever, there is good for the team news from Innsbruck: Charly Gabl gives green light for an ascent to the summit on Sunday - the team expects good conditions with little wind and good visibility.

Earlier: Today, Saturday, Louis, Sepp and I will set off for K2 from Skardu. If everything runs to plan, we will be in Basecamp K2 on Tuesday 21st July. The past events are still very present. To lose Wolfgang was a big blow for us, and each of us must find our own way to deal with it. Also, the completely unfounded accusations from Mr. Garcia haven�t exactly helped the situation. Maybe on our short trekking trip, we will manage to bring things back on an even keel. Most of the OeAV participants are back at home. G�nther Unterberger, Hans Goger, Michaela Landl, Herbert Sch�tter and Kilian Volken are on a trekking tour from the M�rchenwiese to Gilgit and come back on the 22nd July.

6 participants who want to come with us on K2, are already in K2 Basecamp (Jorge, Martin, Santiago, Joelle, Dave and George) to acclimatise.

Earlier: Bad news from Nanga Parbat: Wolfgang Kolblinger is missing. All other members are save in Camp 4 and in basecamp. Details are at this moment not possible. Our thoughts are with Wolfgangs family.

The summit success on Nanga Parbat (8125m) from a tragic event overshadowed: The search for Wolfgang remained unsuccessful so far. Detailed circumstances about the when, where and Wolfgang's whereabouts are not currently known. deepest sympathy in these difficult times to Wolfgang's family, especially his wife and his daughter.

In Camp 4 are after their summit victory Louis, Herbert, Sepp, Hans Goger and Gerfried. All other participants are in or en route to the base camp. They are deeply affected, but their circumstances well

Earlier: After a very short telephone call, I can share the following good news: The first summit ascent of Nanga Parbat (8125m) is underway via the Kinshofer Route.

The as yet unconfirmed report came about an hour ago, and according to Gerfried, involves Wolfgang K�lbinger and three other members. If and how many participants have reached the summit is guesswork at this time.

The �New Route Team� has also safely arrived on Camp 4, where the New Route and the Kinshofer Route come together. Tomorrow, the team wants to storm the summit with G�nther, Hans, Louis, Sepp and Gerfried.

Earlier: summit day postponed until Saturday because of the snow. They could only made 600Hm today and are right now at 6900m

Earlier: Despite the changeable weather, we have used the small chances over the last couple of days to acclimatise ourselves better. On Wednesday, we climbed direct from BC to C2 (6000m). Even a short, heavy blizzard in the Loew-ice crevice couldn�t stop us from ascending further. The track work, for which G�nther especially deserves a mention, was accordingly tiring.
After a hard night, we wanted to ascend to 6500m yesterday. This time, a hail shower drove us back to the protection of the tents in C2 once and for all. This morning, we all descended by bad weather and snow safely back to Basecamp. Now we will recuperate for a few days to recharge our batteries.
The following people were present on this all important acclimatisation excursion: G�nther. Hans, Louis, Gerfried, Herbert, Michaela, brothers Wenzl, Peter, Wolfgang, Sepp, Ronald, Kilian, Sandy, Rick.

In all probability, there is a chance of a run of good weather from Monday. Maybe we could use this for a summit ascent.

Earlier: Dear friends of the �AV Nanga Parbat Expedition,
today, we had to unfortunately deviate from our original plan to ascend to Camp 2 (6000m) and stay there overnight, because the weather situation changed for the worse. Snow and storms are forecast for tomorrow, Tuesday � there is no chance of spending the night on the mountain. There is no bad news however, without good news!

We changed our goal for today and �only� went on an acclimatization tour. G�nther, Hans, Louis and I (accompanied by Herbert, Michi and Sepp) left Basecamp and visited the Diama Glacier, and ascended to 5100m to observe our new planned route. We hit the jackpot with this tour. The start of our planned route should, depending on the conditions, be easier to reach than expected.

G�nther, Hans, Louis and I are optimistic that we will start this untouched face in approximately 10 days. First though, we have to sit out the bad weather
It should improve from Thursday. We are concentrated fully on our acclimatization on the Kinshofer Route. By better weather, we will ascend first to 6000m, and then to 6500m and camp overnight. When we have done this, we should be prepared for a summit ascent. We will then try to put our project into action!

Unfortunately, our team has reduced by one vital member. Our Doc (Dr. G�nther Straub) had to leave us for family reasons and will return to Austria this week. The whole team would like to take this opportunity to thank him for all of his excellent work and wish him all the best.

Yesterday G�nther, Hans, Lois and I climbed thoug the Loeweisrinne and the techncally difficult 80m Kinshoferwall, and reached C2. We laboriously cut out a tent area and left 2 tents there. As a result, most participants reached C2 (6000m) yesterday (G�nther, Hans, Lois, Adriano, Giuseppe, Helmut, Sandy,Rick,Gerfried) and today (Herbert,Kilian, Peter, Wolfgang, Sepp, Gebr�der Wenzl) and all have descended safely into BC. This is a super achievement when you think that we first arrieved in Basecamp just over a week ago. We will now rest for at least 2 days in order to recover our strength. We have certainly earned this break after the last few tiring days. Depending on the weather, we will ascend to C2 in a few days and sleep there. The snow is slowly dissappearing from BC and we are moving to new dry camping areas.

Earlier: The team has arrived and Already today the whole team will active start to acclimatize their bodies. They will walk to camp 1 (4900m) if the weather conditions will be stabled.

Dear EverestNews.com, we�ll start from Vienna, Z�rich, Venice, Munich and Toronto and all meet in Islamabad on 12. June. We have been very busy the last weeks. Unfortunately our very good friend Peter Fessler has died 4 weeks ago while sleeping.

Our expedition is again an expedition of the Austrian Alpine Club OeAV.

We send update after our briefing.

stay tuned

Gerfried

G�schl Gerfried, Austria, Expeditionsleiter
8000er: Cho Oyu, Gasherbrum 2, Shisha Pangma, Mount Everest, Broad Peak

Egocheaga Jorge, Spain, Expeditionsarzt
8000er: Mount Everest, Gasherbrum 1, Cho Oyu, Shisha Pangma, Nanga Parbat, Manaslu, Broad Peak, Dhaulagiri, Gasherbrum 2

Brupbacher Jo�lle, Switzerland
8000er: Broad Peak, Dhaulagiri, Cho Oyu, Gasherbrum 2

Ramos Martin, Spain
8000er: Shisha Pangma, Mount Everest, Cho Oyu, Nanga Parbat, Gasherbrum 2, Broad Peak