GILGIT: Two teams of winter climbers attempting to summit Karakoram Range peaks this year have entered the decisive phase of their expeditions as bad weather conditions are hampering their efforts to scale Broad Peak, also known as K3, and K2, the second highest peak in the world.

In a bid to set a world record by successfully summiting the giant peaks in winter, the famous ice warriors in the two teams are battling with hurricanes, strong winds, ice fall and snow avalanches amid freezing temperature at high altitudes.

The bad weather has forced the climbers of both the teams to stay at base camps of Broad Peak and K2 as there is a forecast that the weather conditions will further worsen in the next four days.

The team trying to summit Broad Peak (8,051 metres) is progressing to chase its goal. This team is comprised of Dennis Urubko from Russia and Don Bowie from Canada. Finnish model Lotta Hintsa is supporting this team, but she will not summit the peak.

Urubko and Bowie had ascended to 680 metres before a hurricane forced them to return to the base camp.

On Friday, Urubko said in an SMS message: “Way not ready to summit we need work 1 day at 7000 altitude.”

Bad weather conditions hampering efforts to scale Broad Peak, K2

In another message he said: “We fight 2km up today to icy terrace 6800 very bad condition as a mirror, we took some ropes out from slope Than hurricane kick us back.”

According to a source of the expedition, after reaching a 6,800 metres high point, Urubko and Bowie found themselves in very complicated condition of the mountain the wall of which was a slab of hard ice. The two climbers managed to pull out some ropes and then went down to the base camp due to strong winds.

In his Instagram page, Bowie said on Friday: “Denis and I made a sprint yesterday, climbing from base camp 4850 metres evolution to 6840 metres, and doing some work there, then climbing back down to base camp, it was long day with 2000 metres vertical climbing (and then descending) but when you get few hours of good hours in the forecast, some time you need to launch a marathon day to get a little work done.”

Hintsa said in a message: “We came down to base camp after spending one night in camp1 and two nights in camp 2 and I have to say I m incredibly proud of our team, there is reason why people don’t climb in winter, the conditions are brutal, you are constantly either breaking trail in waist-deep snow, trying not trigger avalanches, or climbing steep, blue ice, where one mistake might mean you are going away down.”

The expedition team planned to summit Broad Peak till end of this month. If it succeeds, it will be first winter ascent of Broad Peak by meteorological standards.

Meteorological winter starts on Dec 1 and end on Feb 29. Astronomical winter lasts between the winter solstice and spring equinox (from Dec 22 to March 20). Thus some alpinists, including Urubko, feel that a true winter ascent should take place before March 1. By his definition, the generally accepted first winter ascent of Broad Peak in March 2013 is invalid as a winter ascent.

Baltoro Glacier trek

The eight-member international K2 winter expedition team is now stationed at the base camp.

The team arrived at the base camp (4,963 metres) on Wednesday after staying nine days at Baltoro Glacier trek.

According to team member John Snorri of Iceland, the team had crossed Concordia on Jan 20. He said due to bad weather conditions it took three days to move from Concordia to the K2 base camp that normally takes seven hours.

The team on Friday started first rotation up to the advance base camp.

Snorri said: “Today manage to port 100 to 120 kg equipments up to 5600 meters on Abruzzi Spur.”

“The icefall is tricky and some places a bit dangerous, so we needed fix lines to pass,” he added.

He further said: “We didn’t set up advance camp, because we believe winds will be strong for tents there, we still climatsing, next days the weather will be bad, we have to play with weather, the team is felling and well and strong.”

The team is led by Nepalese alpinist Mingma Gyalje Sherpa. Its other members are John Snorri (Iceland), Gao Li (China) and Tomaz Rotar (Slovenia) and Sirbaz Khan from Pakistan along with three Sherpas Tamting, Pasang Namgel and Kili Pempa.

According to the organisers of the expedition, the members are well experienced mountaineers and hopefully they will succeed in summiting K2 for the first time in winter.

Meanwhile, the team wanted to summit Gasherbrum II (8,034 metres) and Gasherbrum I (8,080 metres) has already called off their adventure. This team, comprising Italian alpinists Simon Moro and Tamara Lunger, spent nearly one month at high altitudes during which a crevasse fall incident had injured both the climbers.

Published in Dawn, January 26th, 2020