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Simone's Winter Broad Peak: Base Camp at last, howling winds above
09:34 am CST Jan 16, 2007
(MountEverest.net/K2Climb.net) "Base camp at last,” Simone wrote last night. “We took the army helicopter and landed at Broad Peak's base camp, at nearly 5000m. After 10 days waiting in Skardu we almost gave up and, honestly, we were quite worried about the future of the expedition.”
A cold and lonely base camp
The Italian climber has been in Pakistan for 20 days already - his expedition delayed by cargo problems, bad weather and, most of all, the Army refusing to provide a chopper flight from Skardu to BC.
“But on Sunday, a cloudy day, we got the surprise,” Moro reports. “The helicopter took us along with all our gear to BC.”
“The temperature yesterday was -25 in the afternoon and -30 in the night. There is very little snow and conditions on the mountain look good. However, from BC we can hear the strong wind blowing on the upper sections…”
North Face athlete Simone Moro, 38, has summited Mount Everest (three times), Broad Peak, Cho Oyu, Shisha Pangma (winter), Lhotse (twice) and 5 peaks over 7000 meters. He has the first winter climb of Marble Wall 6400m (Tien Shan), a 24-hour climb on Fitz Roy’s West Face (Patagonia), and many other climbs around the world. Simone and Piotr Morawski summited Shisha Pangma Friday January 14, 2005 at 1:15 pm (local) after a fast 5 hour climb in very strong winds. It was the first (real) winter ascent on a 8000er since 1988, and the first winter climb on Shisha Pangma.
The Shisha winter summit was in fact Simone’s fifth winter climb: To the tragic December attempt on Annapurna in 1997 when Boukreev died, Simone had successful climbs on Aconcagua and Cerro Mirador (new route in alpine style in 1993), and on Marble Wall - the northernmost and coldest 6000er in Central Asia - with Denis Urubko in 2001.
Simone is currently attempting the first winter climb on Broad Peak. Originally he planned to climb solo, but finally he is teaming up with local climber Shaheen Baig, 28. Shaheen summited K2 in 2004 and GII in 2001. He has also scaled eight 7,000ers
None of the Pakistan’s 8000ers (K2, Nanga Parbat, Broad Peak, GI, and GII) have been summited in winter. In Nepal, only Makalu still remains unclimbed in winter. This year, Pakistan’s government has reduced the winter climbing fee to a nominal 5%.
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