K2 2021 Summer Coverage: Summit Wave #2

After a big day on July 27th with 22 summits, the 28th was better with another 21 from Madison Mountaineering and three from Mashabrum Expeditions Treks & Tours. Thus far, and it’s probably over, there have been 46 summits on K2.

Madison Mountaineering posted their summits by:

Garrett sent me this text from C3 after the summit:

Hi Alan! We had a great summit today. Now in camp 3 with the team (😊 memories of being here with you post summit in 2014), tired but all good!

Sajid Sadpara’s home team gave this official update. Note there have been continuous rumors and misinformation about this tragic loss of the three climbers back in February. The bodies were first found by Sherpas fixing the route above C4 from Madison Mountaineering. This is the only official account:

Camp-4 K-2 Sajid has single handedly retrieved the body from above bottleneck, carried down to C-4 and have secured the body there. He has offered fatih & recited verses of Holy Quran as per Islamic rituals and acc to wishes of his mother. morning at 8:10am. I am securing bodies of fallen climbers to a safe place and instant retrieval from above bottleneck is not possible without endangering many lives. Possibilities of retrieving bodies without further damages and without risking lives would be done at later.

The West Ridge effort is over for Graham Zimmerman and Ian Welsted. Ian gave this update:

It is amazing that more than 50 people just summited K2 over the past few days. I am not sure how they are all doing it, but I would love to have an insight.

@grahamzimmerman and I in the same time climbed to 7000m on the west ridge where we encountered nearly continuous wet avalanches and rockfall on a slope we had to cross, and temperatures around +10, so slopes above us for 1000m or so that were unfrozen. I believe it was on this day that Rick Allen, whom we had met and befriended on the walk in, tragically died on the other side of the mountain. Rick was a kind and gentle soul, who will be missed by all. Condolences to his friends and family.

Friends from Canada were supportive of our decision to retreat and await colder, safer temps, so thanks for that, especially @paulmcsorley. With a big snowstorm in the forecast we are now wondering if the season is going to slam shut on this amazingly hot weather window. Good on those who took the opportunity to climb and to summit. Last photo is of Graham at 4 am checking out the stash of coiled skinny fixed line found at the bottom of the west ridge, hundreds of meters of it, some of which we found remains of throughout the route. Different sides of the mountain different styles.

Over on Broad Peak, details are emerging from the second summit wave with no summits. This from Vitaly Lazo:

The second attempt at Broad Peak storming took place on July 26, 2021 Several groups of ascendants attacked at 19:00 local time. The weather was nice, we were full of hopes!

However, at the height of 7600 m, the snow condition has greatly deteriorated, we went to the windy snow board. This is an avalanche area formed due to windshield snow: a sealed snow, under which a weak layer was clearly seen. There were many cracks on the snow cover. At the moment we felt ′′ wooping ′′ (′′ woofing “, heard snow intercession, thankping), we definitely decided to unfold with Anton. At the same time, we strongly recommended that everyone attend. The risk of being on this slope was very high, so we have no doubts about this difficult decision. The main thing is to stay alive and come home.

In the video – descent to Camp 2. We put a tent under the rock, in a very cozy windproof place. There is one disadvantage: every time we descended there, there was a puddle of 50 cm deep in the tent… And every time we had to arrange a water drain so that things wouldn’t get wet. This time we put together Camp 2, took off the 3th camp. On the descent, I first descended with a backpack weighing about 40 kilos, and it’s such a horror!

The season has been very difficult, so I can’t tell with accuracy if we’re going back to Broad Peak yet. It takes time to rethink everything, relax, and now I definitely don’t want to and can’t think about the mountains. Beach, cocktail, relaxation… The only thing I can think about right now is coming home. About family.

Teams and Trackers (partial list)

• Broad Peak, K2
  • Madison Mountaineering: 9 climbers (USA, UK & Ukrain), 10 Nepal Sherpas, 4 Pakistani high altitude porters, and 10 Pakistani base camp staff. TrackerKenton Cool with a client. TrackerJon Gupta with a client
  • Karakorum Expeditions: 11 members supported by 22 Pakistani climbers. Trackers: Fotis Theocharis and Carlos Garranzo
  • Graham Zimmerman and Ian Welsted: West Ridge – No Public Tracker Known
• K2 Only
  • Ukrainian-Nepalese K2 Expedition 2021: 3 Ukrainians and 3 Nepal’s Pioneer Adventure Sherpas
  • Ukraine team Alpomania supported by 6 Sherpas from Nepal’s Pioneer Adventure
  • Sajid Ali Sadpara: searching for evidence of his father, Muhammad Ali Sadpara. Team of 3 with BC support. Tracker
  • Jeff Spelman and Niels Jespers Tracker
• Broad Peak only
  • Victor Sans
  • Don Bowie with Lotta Hintsa
• Gasherbrum I
  • Blue Sky Czech Republic & Slovakia
  • Lluis Cortadellas
• Gasherbrum II
  • Poland’s Beskid Expedition with Piotr Krzyzowski’s tracker
  • Czech-Slovak tracker
  • The Altitude Team with Lluis Cortadellas’ tracker
  • Pakistan’s Sirbaz Khan’s tracker
• Broad Peak, GI, and GII
  • Serge Hardy
• Nanga Parbat – Over
  • 5 person Spanish Team lead by Manuel ‘Lolo’ González. tracker

Climb On!
Alan
Memories are Everything

The Podcast on alanarnette.com

You can listen to #everest2021 podcasts on Spotify, Apple Podcast, Breaker, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts, RadioPublic, Anchor, and more. Just search for “alan arnette” on your favorite podcast platform.