|
|
ExplorersWeb Week-In-Review
Agu 2, 2004 08: 19 EST
What a K2 anniversary week! July 31, 50 years ago K2 was first summited by Italian Lino and Achille and climbers (incl Lino's nephew and Achille's grandson) hoped to repeat the feat this week, 50 years later:
"K2 Summit Push is On," we reported in last weeks wrap up. "There is a window of decent weather predicted for the K2 area this weekend." Teams were in position but Chad Kellogg and Rory Stark, along with climbers from several other teams, aborted their summit attempt after reaching Camp 2 and encountering “forty mile an hour winds” and snow.
Close by, on Gasherbrum 1, Carlos Pauner launched his final summit bid on Hidden Peak (Gasherbrum I) in a now or never attempt. “Most of the climbers in the Gasherbrums BC suffer from ‘broken minds’ and dying motivation.” Said Carlos. “I believe we could still have a chance, even if it keeps on snowing every day in BC.”
That's when the news hit:
July 26: First 8000m summit of the season!
We got word from Carlos Pauner’s wife, Mila, that Carlos had summited Gasherbrum I.
And then, the curse of K2 was broken once again by the Italians: July 26, Silvio Mondinelli and Karl Unterkircher of the Italian team summited K2, in its first summit in three years. The Italians marked the 50th anniversary of the first K2 summit in style! The weather was optimal – a serene sky and lowering wind speeds. At 5.15 PM local time, about 45 minutes after Mondinelli and Unterkircher summited, Walter Nones, Ugo Giacomelli and Michele Compagnoni followed suit. Michele Compagnoni’s grandfather was the first to stand at the summit of K2, 50 years ago. The summit push took 14 hours in all.
Spanish Edurne Pasaban, Juanito Oiarzabal, Juan Vallejo, and Mikel Zabalza all summited along side the first two Italians. “It is over! Never, ever am I going to climb again!” sobbed the frost bitten Edurne, hugging her climbing mates as she stumbled back into BC. Twenty-four hours and some rest later, she changed her mind: “Although I look like crap, I am happy and I'll climb again.” In Euskera (the Basque language), Edurne, means “snow.” The snowgirl is now the only female K2 summiteer alive in the world and has bagged seven 8000’ers in four years, climbing right to the top of the ace female climber’s list. Only Polish Wanda Rutwievicz ever managed to summit more - eight 8000’ers. Wanda was also the first woman who summited K2 and died on Kangchenjunga in 1992.
Edurne's team mate and record-climber Juan Oiarzabal was not only severely frostbitten, but also suffers extreme exhaustion. Juan was found almost unconscious on the descent and helped down. Said his Doc: “If he wasn’t rescued on Monday, we wouldn’t be talking of frostbite here, rather maybe of something much worse.” Juan is the third climber on Earth to summit K2 twice. He now has 21 8000m-climbs.
More Italians on Top Marco Da Pozzo, Mario Dibona, Renato Sottsass, Renzo Benedett, Luciano Zardini - and Mario Lacedelli: "A dream! A dream for all of us and Mario in particular: Lino Lacedelli will be proud of his nephew!"
4 Chinese summited K2 at 9:50am, July 27 (Beijing time) The Chinese Team attempted K2 summit twice in year 2000 and 2002 respectively, but both attempts were abandoned due to bad weather. In its 2002 summit effort, they had reached 8410m before they encountered a huge storm. After fighting with the storm for almost 14 hours, the team finally decided to turn back with lots of reluctance. This year, they finally made it.
Pakistan on top: Mohammad Sanap Akam, Nisar Hussain, and Muhammad Hussain summited K2 as well.
Iñaki Ochoa made the summit at 07.35 Pakistan time. Inaki began his push at 00.50 Pakistan time from Camp 4 (7.800 meters), making the final 811 meters in the incredible time of 6 hours and 45 minutes without the use of artificial oxygen. He began the final push on Monday 26, when he climbed from base camp (4.900 meters) to camp 2 (6.600) in only 6 hours. On Tuesday 27, he climbed from camp 2 to camp 4 (7.800) in only 5 hours. Iñaki was attempting K2 for the fourth time. In 1994 he had an almost fatal accident on the North side and in the same expedition also lost his friend Antxo Apellaniz. “There were so many emotions and memories rushing into my mind… for the first time in my life, I cried when summiting an 8000er”. Wednesday morning at 10:00, three hours after reaching the summit, weather suddenly turned to the worse: snow fell and strong gusts of wind swept the mountain. Approaching Camp 4, he missed a turn and was lost for an hour along with a Sherpa from another team (Exactly the same spot Juanito Oiarzabal was lost two days earlier). K2 is Inaki's 9th 8000er.
Horia Colibasanu climbed with Inaki and became the first Romanian to bag K2, an amazing feat considering this was his first time above 8000 meter! Horia called a friend when he returned back to BC: "He said that 'I climbed K2 along with a crazy Spaniard' ..:) and I told him that we already knew he climbed with Inaki. He also said that it was a hell of a speedy and exhausting climb. He sait that they passed several climbers using oxygen on their way to the top!"
More K2 summits: Kari Kobler called in three successful summits: Mischu Wirth, Cederic Hählen and Johannes Blaser, all from Switzerland, made it to the top. So did Colombian Fernando González-Rubio.
Spanish climber Carlos Soria, 65 reached the summit of K2 on oxygen, becoming the oldest K2 summiteer. When it comes supplementary oxygen, Carlos is the only climber currently on the mountain who honestly said that he would use it if needed to reach the top: “I will bring 3 bottles of O2 to the shoulder . I will try not to use them, but if I need them to make the summit, I will have no regrets to do so. I am not ashamed, I am 65 and the summit is my priority; I’ll do what I can, as long as I don’t harm the rest.”
Record breaking K2 season: AdventureStats compiled a preliminary list of this season’s K2 summits and there has never been anything like it before. 43 climbers reached the top during three consecutive summit waves. That is nearly 50% more than the previous record season; 29 climbers in 1996. Tuesday, 14 climbers ascended K2, the closest was 11 on August 14, 1996. Not only has this been a spectacular season for the mountain but also some record breaking individual efforts too. Like Juanito Oiarzbal who now bags 21 8,000+ meter ascents, the most main mountain summits ever. Juanito is also the third person to climb K2 twice, joining the short list with Sherap Jangbu and Josef Rakoncaj. Edurne Pasaban now has seven 8,000+ meter ascents, is the sixth girl to summit K2 and the only woman to climb four of the five highest mountains of the earth Silvio Mondinelli has nine 8,000+ meter mountains with Mondays summit, and is the 14th person to climb the Top 3 (Everest, K2 and Kangchenjunga) without O2! Karl Unterkircher climbed Everest and K2 without O2 in the shortest time ever; 2 months and two days. And Carlos Soria became the oldest to summit at the age of 65.
Three nations achieved their first summit of K2: Colombia, Romania and China.
The Karakorum party continued on the other peaks:
Gasherbrum 1 Summiteers along side Carlos Pauner were also Katja Staartjes, a Dutch Everest summiteer woman, Spanish Raquel Pérez and Willie Barbier, Amical Ralf Dujmovits, Austrian Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner, Japanese Hirotaka Takeuchi, Austrian Peter Fessler, Pakistani Qudrat Ali, Balti and a scattered crew of International climbers, including Spanish Javier Ugarte. A Portugese/Belgium climbing team of two was reported missing for a while but turned up later in C2: João Garcia (Portugal) summited on Monday 12h00, local time; Jean-Luc Fohal (Belgium) joined him at 12h15.
Spanish climber José Antonio Antón (30) slipped and fell 700m to his death while descending. Gasherbrum I was the first 8,000er for Jose Antonio, who had previous climbs in the Andes, and Khan Tengri.
Gasherbrum 2 had summits as well, according to Amical and sat phone reports to ExWeb. Confirmed summiteers were Amical Hajo Netzer (Germany), Alois Kari (Germany), Josef Lurz (Germany) and Erich Weitlaner (Austria). Italian Giovannini Diego, Iztok Tomazin, Franz Seiler, Andrej Tercelj and Stojan Burnik of the Slovenian team. Sue Fear (AUS), leader of the Field Touring Alpine G2 expedition, and members Ian Wade (UK).
Gasherbrum 3 had it's second ever summit by Alberto Iñurrategi and Jon Beloki.
Broad Peak: Paul Walters and Mick Parker (both Aus) summitted Broad Peak true summit along with Jamie McGuiness and one Iranian member from the Field Touring Expedition.
More drama: A Suicide bomber just outside of Islamabad attacked Shaukat Aziz, Pakistan’s Prime Minister designate’s motorcade Friday. While he escaped, initial reports have 5 to 6 dead and 22 to 25 people injured. Only known climbers in Islamabad were Edurne Pasaban and Juanito Oiarzabal who were last in an Islamabad hospital Thursday and scheduled to fly to Spain Friday.
More adventure: 39 year old X-gamer, Valery Rozov, made a successful B.A.S.E.-jump from Amin Brakk wall. Wearing an S3 wing suit, Valery bid adieu to his five man climbing team and took the 30 second free-fall before opening his parachute. “We climbed a very serious route on one of the most beautiful and most complicated walls of Karakorum.” Wrote Valery, “and using the wing suit we made a B.A.S.E.-jump from the wall in very uneasy conditions. The wall is not strictly vertical and has a structure of ledges. The only thing that we did not manage to do is to lead an absolutely new route. Because of abnormally bad weather on the top part of the route we had to turn on to the Czech variant." Check K2climb.net for awesome pictures!
More K2 - Abruzzi Spur is deserted, but the North side and the Magic Line are jumping – check out spectacular pics shot over by the Magic boys! Both teams, Italian and Spanish, patiently wait for the weather to improve, and they don’t even think of leaving. Next week we can expect some excitement, as they intend to launch their summit bids as soon as the wind recedes. Jordi Tosas of the Magic line describes the climb between C2, an airy ‘Eagle’s nest as: ”a progression over huge rock overhanging pillars, followed by snow couloirs more than 45 degrees steep, where we struggled in waist-deep snow.” Extreme snowboarder, he has also brought his board along while climbing, just in case of a chance for a surf descent.
The Italian team on the north side of K2 are back in Base Camp and have delayed their summit plans until weather improves. Last weather window allowed them to fix the route up to 7000m. Therefore, the North ridge is ready for an attempt to the summit. Among the climbers, the powerful trio formed by Nives Meroi, Romano Benet and Luca Vuerich is patiently hoping for a chance to make K2 Nives and Romano’s seventh 8000er. The North route has not been summited since 1996, and no woman has ever climbed the North side of K2…
Happy Birthday K2 Yesterday, on the day of K2's first ascent July 31 1954, K2climb.net compiled a debrief on K2's history from 1902 until today. From the mad Aleister Crowley in 1902, to Lino and Achille in 1954, their grandson and nephew in 2004, a suicide attack on the Prime minister Friday and a Magic Line yet to be surfed, the drama of the Mountaineers Mountain continues to mesmerize the world of mountaineering.
In other adventure news: Financing Everest, Rocking out at the Poles and Captain Reid's Ocean Odyssey - it's all at ExplorersWeb.com
Classic image of the Italian summit 50 years ago courtesy of Montagna.org.
|
|
Feature Stories |
|
Latest News |
more news |
 |
ExWeb Interview: Damian Benegas - Return to a Dangerous Land
Full Story
|
 |
ExWeb Interview: Manuel Gonzalez - Turning to the Gasherbrums to h
Full Story
|
 |
Menno Boermans: Frozen images from Broad Peak
Full Story
|
 |
K2 2005: Base Camp Clinic!
Full Story
|
 |
K2: Americans for 2005 SSE Ridge Alpine style attempt
Full Story
|
 |
Karakorum climbing permit Sale to continue!
Full Story
|
 |
Silvio Mondinelli/Edurne Pasaban Nanga Parbat 2005
Full Story
|
|
|
| Ireland K2 expedition leaving town Sunday Jun 3, 2005 | | Avalanche alert in Pakistan and media reports of 2005 causalties Jun 2, 2005 | | Vikings for Pakistan sky descents! Jun 1, 2005 | | Russians for K2 West Face first ascent May 31, 2005 | | ExplorersWeb Week in Review May 30, 2005 | | Pakistan's last images of Chinese/Tibet expedition May 28, 2005 | | China/Tibet's great loss - Rena dies, Bianba Zaxi seriously injured May 28, 2005 | | China/Tibet Gasherbrum expedition caught in big avalanche May 28, 2005 | | Simone Moro's Batura II expedition: “Thank God Alpinism is anything but dead,” part 2 final May 26, 2005 | | Simone Moro's Batura II expedition: "Thank God alpinism is anything but dead" part 1 May 25, 2005 |
| | Iridium: "Invalid battery - matches found, 0" May 24, 2005 |
|
|
|
|
2004
BEST of EXPLORERSWEB
|
|
|
|
