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 up to the high camps, but hopefully in about a week we will have everything in place to make our summit bid. Everyone is doing well and enjoying time in base camp.

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.

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 will climb to Camp 1 tomorrow. The nice weather should hold until Friday.

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 up to Camp 1 partway and then return to ABC to sleep. Our Estonian climbers are at Camp 1 tonight and doing well, they will climb to Camp 2 tomorrow.

Today we had our Puja ceremony, where we ask the mountain for safe passage before beginning our climb. All our team gathered at our Puja shrine and we had a wonderful ceremony. Tomorrow some members of our team will climb to Advanced base camp, while others will continue to rest. Our Sherpa climbers will continue fixing lines and hopefully reach Camp 2 tomorrow or the next day. All is well at K2 base camp.