Bivouc - Japanese Couloir
23 August, 2011 – Start towards the Summit
After Gerlinde, Vassiliy, Maxut and Darek had spent an icy and bittercold night at 8,300m, they were getting ready for a 1am start in their cramped bivouac. Shortly after their departure at about 1.30am, they started having problems with their hands due to the intense cold. Even though the gradient above the bivouac is ‘only’ 45° – the climbers still have to stand on their forefeet most of the time. This reduces the blood circulation and with temperatures of -25°C leads to very cold feed.
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Ascent CIV – Japanese Couloir
Latest news from K2-North-Pillar-Expedition
Yesterday evening, our four friends took the difficult decision to use today as a rest and fixing day. They spent a very cold night at 8000 m and this morning at 6:30 a.m. they started to fix some rope along the traverse into the Japanese Couloirs and further up this couloirs.
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Tommy has a close look to Vassily's totally destroyed tent.
Dear Friends
At midday today, I was finally able to talk to Gerlinde. She said that the wind had still been very strong and that Vassiliy, Maxut, Darek and herself had just reached a point above Camp III. At about two-thirds up the very steep bit directly on the pillar after Camp III, they had been wading through huge amounts of fresh snow and snowdrifts. They all sounded well, however, they were quite exhausted due to the strong winds.
Continue reading “7th Report – the International K2 Expedition to the North Pillar of K2” »
5th Newsletter – International K2 North Pillar Expedition
When we were still on the mountain about a week ago, Charly had told us that we would have to deal with pretty bad weather for the coming days. With this in mind, we decided get some rest and breath some ‘thicker’ air at our Chinese Base Camp, which the locals call “Sughet Jungal”, at 3,850m. “Sughet Jungal” means virgin forest or jungle with bushes and that is exactly how we remembered it from our first few days of the expedition.
We had left our personal tents as well as the mess and kitchen tents pitched in the middle of these beautiful meadows, bushes and small creeks as we had expected to come back to recharge our batteries down there. After having spent more than four weeks at the rocky and barren Italy Base Camp at the edge of the K2 glacier, it was great to get down.
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4th Newsletter Int. K2 North Pillar Expedition
We spent another five days and four nights at high camps on the mountain. Last night we came back to our advanced base camp, tired but also very content. We left from our advanced base camp on 19th July after a forecast of at least six days of good weather.
Bad weather brought continuous snowfall and heavy fog from our deposit camp onwards, which left us doubting our plans on arrival at Camp I. The climb across the glacier — with lots of crevasses and several falls (no injuries) — didn’t make it any easier for us. Over night the sky cleared and so we started on 20th July at 5:30 am.
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