Karakorum Summit Bids Underway!!

K2Climb.net has posted another Karakorum update with news that summit pushes are underway all over the region.

On K2, The Shared Summits Team, made up of Americans Chris Warner, Don Bowie, and Bruce Normand, along with the Korean team on the Abruzzi Spur, are making their push in fresh snow and high winds. Warner is quoted as saying "Today the mountain kicked my ass." upon arriving at C3 yesterday after 9 1/2 hours of climbing, on a route that should have taken just 5. The team broke trail through fresh snow, which took a great deal of effort and left them exhausted by the time they made camp. There are other teams on K2, most at C2 and C3 at this time, but they are still acclimatizing, and won't be making their summit bids just yet.

Over on Nanga Parbat, Dodo Kopold, Peter Hamor, and Piotr Morawski are already racing up the mountain. They expect to be at C4 by tomorrow, with a summit bid by the weekend for sure. Of course, this is just a warm up for the two Slovakian climbers along with their Polish companion, are using Nanga Parbat to acclimatize for the Western Face of K2.

The Gasherbrum peaks are seeing the action heat up as well. Two routes are already underway on GII, with the Italian team setting up Camp 1 near a spur on the mountain, while the Spanish team have moved slightly over and are giving a different route a go. The FTA Team have just set out for their first summit push on GII as well, hoping to put their team on top sometime around the 11th or 12th of July. Finally, sad news from BC, as the Amical Team has announced that one of their teammates died yesterday for as of yet unexplained reasons. The rest of the team is deciding if they want to carry on with the climb now or call an end to their efforts. The teammate was a female climber named Ulrike.

Finally, on Broad Peak, yesterday Carlos Pauner announced his intentions to make a summit bid, and has invited other teams to join him so that they could all share in the efforts of breaking trail in fresh snow. His intentions are to start moving up today or tomorrow, but Silvio Mondinelli's team has just returned to BC from Camp 3, and they report lots of loose snow at the higher altitudes, and a high degree of danger from avalanches. Also returning to BC were Ralf and Gerlinde, who spent 3 days acclimatizing at C2. Do those two ever go home?