BROAD PEAK WINTER 2008
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| THE GEOGRAPHY: Broad Peak is part of the Gasherbrum massif on the border of Pakistan-China. It is located about 8 kilometers (5 miles) from K2. Broad Peak was originally named K3 right after the naming of K2 but on closer inspection by a later party, it was discovered that the summit was over 1½ kilometers (1 mile) long, thus "Broad Peak". THE HISTORY: In spite of several attempts, none of Pakistan’s 8000ers have been summited in winter. On Broad Peak in Particular, Italian Simone Moro and Pakistani climbers Shaheen Baig and Qudrat Ali have been rejected by loads of snow, bitter cold and bad conditions for the past two years. |
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| Dr. Robert Szymczak has been in expeditions to Kyrgyzstan, Nepal and Pakistan. He is a medical doctor specializing in high altitude medicine. He is also a member of the International Society for Mountain Medicine. More... | 2008 marks Don Bowie's 4th season climbing in the Himalayas, with previous expeditions to Broad Peak, Cho Oyu, K2, and the South Face/East Ridge of Annapurna in 2006 and 2008. More... | Artur Hajzer has summited five eight-thousanders: three of them via new routes. He also achieved the first winter climb on Annapurna. More... | ||
| Phone Dispatch from Don |
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July 1, 2010 Even though Alexey and I knew that the weather was going to be bad, our goal was to try to push as high as we could toward Camp 2 on GI. Our first push got us to Camp 1 at 5926m. We spent a day acclimatizing there which means we spent 2 nights. We got up yesterday morning after the second night here and even though visibility was extremely poor, winds were high, and it was snowing, we made our way up along the glacier and up the ice fall towards Camp 2. We understand that Camp 2 is about 6500 m, but we haven’t made it there yet. Last night we camped just below Camp 2 about 6400m. Even though the weather is really bad with blowing snow and high winds, we don’t mind very much because we are dressed warm in our mountain gear and can get warm in the tent There is a ton of snow up here and it has filled in the crevasses. We’ve hit a few small ones, but nothing very big. Today we went up another 100m and think we found the way up into the pass. We feel satisfied that we have reached this high on GI and spent a good amount of time acclimatizing on the mountain. Tomorrow morning we will pack up, leave a stash of gear here, and head back down to Camp 2 and then to Base Camp where we plan to rest for a few days. |
