On the morning of July 17th, I was planning on heading to Camp 1 on K2, but something about Broad Peak drew me in the opposite direction. I repacked my backpack at dawn, shouldered it and headed off by myself to Camp 1 at 6,200 meters/20,400 feet.
Arriving at 1 p.m., I hydrated, pared down my gear and napped for hours. At 9 p.m., I strapped on the crampons and headed up the steep snow slopes and rocky ridge towards Camp 2. Clouds rolled over me, carrying snow, and obscuring the view to mere feet. Climbing in the clouds, I was soon damp, then drenched by the mists.
At 10 p.m., I was almost 1,000 feet up the route, traveling quickly, but beginning to doubt the wisdom of pushing on. At 10:30, the clouds tried to part, at least the snow and mists stopped. The winds simply blew that inconvenience away. The cold really began to creep through my damp clothes. Visibility was still limited, the higher clouds masking the moon and casting deep dark shadows across Broad Peak. At 6,900 meters/22,800 feet, I decided to head back to the warmth of my sleeping bag.
On the morning of July 18th, as a storm tore at Broad Peak's Camp 1, my teammates left Base Camp to join me. Inaki, Peta, Ray, Henry, Simone, Barbara, Rod and Padawa, with the help of our four high altitude porters arrived between noon and 2 p.m. Oscar and Joby came much later, arriving around 7 p.m. for just a short rest.
The weather seemed unstable through the afternoon. By 8 p.m. the skies cleared completely, simply beautiful. At 9 p.m., we (all but Henry) strapped on our crampons and started upwards. As the sky darkened, the moon brightened and the stars stretched across the sky.
Within 2 hours we reached the 6,900 meter camp of the Koreans. They, too, were pushing for the summit this night. Here some of our climbers began to fade back and in the next few hours, almost everyone found their personal summit.
By 3 a.m. Inaki and I caught up to the Koreans, and the team of Charlie Fowler and Christine Boskoff. We were now quite high, perhaps at 7,600 meters/25,700 feet. The Koreans were passing Charlie and Christine and started to fix some ropes along a rising traverse.
As the progress faded to next to nothing, I climbed past the gang to see if I could force the route. It seemed that the Koreans were trying to force the route over a deep crevasse, hidden by unconsolidated snow. In the confusion and deserved apprehension, I tied into the sharp end of the rope and tried to move us forward.
We were perhaps 150 vertical feet below the col, from there we knew that the route was just a rock scramble to the summit. If we reached the col, especially at this early hour, we would certainly be successful. What separated us from the col (the low point between the central and main summits) was 150 vertical and 300 horizontal feet of 45-60 degree completely unconsolidated snow. I dug a quick pit, judging the avalanche danger to be moderate.
Tied into the rope I headed up, hoping to find a secret passage through the danger zone. The snow was too soft to hold my weight. Using my mittened hands, I dug a trench 3 feet deep in the steep slope. It seemed that 3 feet down, the snow was thick enough to hold my weight. At the end of the rope, I dug even deeper, pushing in a snow picket with which to anchor the rope. A Korean, climbing in my footsteps, pulled on the rope and the picket simply sliced through the soft snow. It was impossible to secure the rope and safeguard our route to the col.
Contacting Inaki on the radio, we decided at nearly 7,800 meters/26,000 feet to get down, immediately. The slope was unsafe and the bottleneck of us 10 climbers, none of us sharing a common language and ambition, darkness and a lot competing opinions was causing further challenges. In better conditions, we were just two hours from the summit.
Our team of Inaki, Ray and myself, joined by Christine and Charlie beat a quick retreat. As the sky lightened with the hope of dawn, we could see that Koreans were also turning back.
As we descended, we picked up most of our team. As we sat with Simone, at 7,200 meters, the ridgelines of K2 were turning red. It was a beautiful morning. Despite not summiting, we had accomplished a goal: to use Broad Peak as a way of acclimatizing for the summit of K2.
Now, on July 21 we are sitting in base camp, waiting for our summit bid. We hope, based on some new weather information that we have, to be able to move upwards at the end of this week, perhaps summiting early next week. I will keep you posted.