Entries by Garrett

K2 / Broad Peak Recap

The K2 / Broad Peak team is now back in Islamabad and preparing to head home! Some of our members have already flown out, and the last of us will be departing Pakistan this weekend. Conditions were tough this year on K2 & Broad Peak, resulting in no confirmed summits from any of the teams […]

K2 climb is abandoned as conditions deteriorate

During the last few days the weather and route conditions have deteriorated significantly on K2, causing many avalanches and also rock fall. The climate here has warmed up dramatically, and as a result snow slides down to the glacial ice have peeled off K2 and the surrounding peaks, in once case the snow avalanches buried […]

Resting in base camp, snow continues to fall

We have been resting in base camp the last 2 days. Because of daily snowfall, and the inherent risk of avalanches, we cannot plan to climb or carry up supplies until the weather improves and conditions stabilize. Currently we will be resting in base camp at least a few more days before possibly making a […]

Back in base camp

We descended down from Camp 2 and are now back in our base camp, relaxing and watching the weather to plan for our summit attempt. The weather was changing on our descent so we observed some interesting ‘rainbows’ in the sky, ice crystals illuminated by the sunlight. We still need to carry a few loads […]

Climbing the Black Pyramid!

Today we climbed up the Black Pyramid on the K2 Abruzzi ridge route. We wanted to scout the route up towards Camp 3. The lines are now in all the way to Camp 3 on our route. The weather continues to hold and clear views of the surrounding peaks dominate scenery, we are having dinner […]

We climbed up to Camp 2 today!

Today we climbed from Camp 1 on the Abruzzi ridge of K2 to Camp 2! We had great weather and awesome climbing conditions! We will spend the night here. Our Estonian climbers descended today from Camp 2 to base camp, they are doing well.

Great day climbing to Camp 1!

Today we climbed up to Camp 1 on the Abruzzi ridge. We had fantastic weather and great route conditions. We knew it would be hot, so we woke up at 3:30 AM and began climbing by 5 AM, reaching Camp 1 around 11 AM. Tomorrow we plan to move to Camp 2. Our Estonian climbers […]

Rest day in ABC

Today was warm and sunny, a marked change from the last few days of cloudy and snowy weather. We decided to take a rest day in our Advanced Base Camp, to let the sun warm up the new snow. Now that the mountain has shed off much of the new snow that recently accumulated, we […]

Scouting the route to K2 Camp 1

Today we climbed from our Advanced Base Camp partway up the route on the Abruzzi ridge to K2 Camp 1. We had some snow flurries but good conditions otherwise. We are back in our ‘ABC’ and will sleep here tonight, then evaluate our plan tomorrow depending on climbing and weather conditions.

Climb to K2 Advanced Base Camp

Today we left our base camp and climbed up to our ‘ABC’ (K2 Advanced Base Camp), at 17,300′. This took us about 3 hours, and we had to negotiate a small icefall section just before reaching our camp. The clouds were nice as it kept the air temperature cool for us. Tomorrow we will climb […]