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Jordi Corominas meters away from K2 summit on the Magic Line! Japanese summit by Cesen route!
Agu 16, 2004 09: 50 EST
Jordi Corominas, from the Magic Line, is climbing the final slopes of K2, advancing at a very slow pace, sinked in fresh snow up to his waist.
Oscar Cadiach and Corominas left their tent at 8100m this morning at 4:00 am, local time, as planned. Oscar Cadiach would soon decided to turn around.
But not Jordi Corominas, who, once he ‘smelled the summit’ reached his own point of no return, and went for it alone. At 2:00 pm, local time, there were only 100 vertical meters between him and the summit.
He had already overpassed all the technical sections, and there were only some steep snow fields to climb. The weather remains good; Jordi has been reportedly climbing without gloves most of the time. The mountain is sheltering him from the wind.
Very difficult decissions are being taken today by the Catalonian team attempting the Magic Line. The weather still holds, but not for long, so the descent is the critical issue now.
Japanese summit by the Cesen route
Meanwhile, the Dosanko Japanese expedition – of whom we haven’t had news for weeks - have just reached the summit Cesen route, according to Valen Giró.
According to Iñaki ochoa de Olza, who summited K2 on July 28th, the Dosanko team, lead by Mr. Masahide Matsumoto, is a small four-members team, two of them designed as a summit team, and two others supporting their mates and working on the route.
They are hiring no sherpas or high altitude porters, according to Iñaki, but they fixed ropes at least up to 6300 m. Spanish Alex Txicon and Jorge Palacio fixed between 200 and 300 meters more –before abandoning their attempt. Iñaki left the mountain two weeks ago, so more rope could have been fixed since then.
The Magic Line climbers don’t believe that Corominas will be able to descent via the Magic Line; but neither the Abruzzi Spur, where getting lost is easy in worsening weather.
Once informed about the situation, the Japanese have agreed to provide a place for Jordi in Camp 4 (shared both on the Abruzzi and Cesen routes). Therefore, Corominas could climb back down to BC along with them.
Valen Giró has therefore left C3 on the Abruzzi route and is now going back down to BC.
Weather forecast: Above 7500m - Winds near 5 m/s Sunday, increasing early Monday to around 7-12 m/s (10-12 m/s at the Summit). They could further increase to near 15 m/s by the afternoon hours on Monday. Winds will continue to increase on Tuesday to around 12-18 m/s (near 20 m/s at the Summit). By Wednesday expect the winds to be 10-15 m/s (15-20 m/s at the Summit). Through the rest of the week expect winds around 7-15 m/s. There is a chance for high clouds/near 7500m snow on Thursday and Friday.
Messner attempted the Magic Line in 1979 with Michl Dacher. He abandoned the route after a while and climbed the Abruzzi Spur instead. It was then the fourth repetition of the Abruzzi. It is commonly said that after his climb, Reinhold described the Magic Line as suicidal, which he denied Friday.
The first Magic Line ascent was made by a Polish/Slovak team. The men were Wojtek Wroz (Poland), Przemyslaw Piasecki (Poland) and Peter Bozik (Slovakia). The climbers ascended in expedition style up to 7600 m. Wojtek Wroz fell from the fixed ropes during the descent by the Abruzzi spur. Peter Bozik later perished during an attempt to climb the Bonington route on the South West Face of Everest in 1998.
The head of the current "Tarragona Magic Line Expedition 2004" is Oscar Cadiach, who has done 5 expeditions to Everest, 2 of which reached the summit. Cadiach has also climbed Nanga Parbat, Shisha Pangma, Makalu and Lhotse. He opened the route 'Free Tibet' on Cho Oyu and did a new route on Broad Peak central. Manel de la Matta climbed Cho Oyu and Shisha Pangma. Jordi Corominas climbed Dhaulagiri alone.
The climbers are attempting the first repetition of the Line. Monday 15th, could be the summit day. The other difficult K2 route this season was the Italian attempt of the North side which hasn't been climbed since 1996. That expedition was aborted last Thursday.
Image of Jordi Corominas, Copyright K2 Magic Line 2004 Expedition.
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