Background

Dispatch 1

Dispatch 2

Dispatch 3

Dispatch 4

Dispatch 5

Dispatch 6

Dispatch 7

Dispatch 8

Dispatch #6: The Initial Summit Push

No summits, but everyone's down alive.

Take a lot of bad weather, lots of ambition (without matching skills), and a small window of good weather and what do you get? Just what happened over the last few days on Broad Peak.

July 21. I was a day behind the main summit push (which included about everybody else on the mountain). Don and I were at Camp 2 (6300m). Don, Chris, and Dao (USA) all attempted the summit from C2. Don started feeling funny at 7600m and turned around--one of the few instances of good sense shown that day.

That evening, Don was monitoring the Polish radio frequency and heard of an accident. This started almost 48 hrs of uncertainty about who was hurt (or even alive). The Poles (with some help) spend almost all night getting Arthur, who had a broken leg, back to C3.

July 22. The first thing we heard in the morning was that a Czech and an Italian were dead. We knew the Poles were descending so Don and I went up and fixed another 300+ m of fixed rope above Camp 2. The rest of the climbers were descending as we tried to fix the ropes. Most climbers were in pretty rugged shape.

As the day progressed, the reports of fatalities were replaced by reports of one missing Italian climber. At the end of the day the Poles arrived at C2, quite exhausted. Arthur was his usual jovial self, despite the broken leg. Chris and Dao returned from a bivy in a snow hole at 7900m without reaching the top due to high winds.

July 23. At this point we had no info about the missing Italian (Max). I decided to head down to Base, find out the situation, and try to organize for possible multiple rescues. Nobody was doing the job down there. In three hours I was at BC, and found out that Gionni (SWI) had found Max at 7600m, clearly a victim of cerebral edema (HACE). They were descending from C3.

I then headed up to K2 BC to try to find a stretcher. The worst part of the descent was ahead for Arthur--the traverse across the glacier from the bottom of the fixed ropes. (Just for comparison, it took me 1:40 to descend the 1300m from C2 to the bottom of the ropes, and 1:30 to cross the glacier).

I brought back a couple of plastic sleds (which worked great). It still took them over 5-6 hours to cross the glacier, ending at 9:45 pm. Max and Jonny made it down earlier that day. Everyone's back!

Many people reached was is known as the 'rocky summit' which is a point along the ridge leading to the true summit. It's over 8000m but is 20m or so lower than the true summit, about a kilometer away. Last year I reached a point just below this outcrop. They reached the rocky summit at a criminally late hour of 3:30 pm or later.

So no summits, though many claim to have reached 'the summit.'

July 25. We're sitting around trying to decide what to do. Many are leaving, some of us want to stay and make another attempt. The weather is unsettled, and many uncertainties exist. So who knows?

We're wrung out emotionally and (in some cases) physically. The helicopter showed up at took Arthur away this morning, and the weather has gotten a bit worse again. I'm feeling fine and really haven't had a chance yet to see what will happen when I go high.

No pictures now, not enough energy to fiddle with it!

Late news: a couple of Khazaks (sp) finished a new route and reached the true summit. Congratulations!

Mike