On K2 this week, the doubts were carried by avalanches. Russians and Italians on the Abruzzi, Czechs on the SSE Ridge, climbers going up and climbers coming down: baptized in doubt by avalanches.

At some point during my late teen years, I responded to a classified ad in our local newspaper offering "exciting employment opportunities for bright and enthusiastic go-getters" looking to make piles of money. A few days later I arrived at the pre-screening meeting, only to find an entire room packed full of other eager beavers also looking to score an easy buck. Dressed to-the-nines in a brown corduroy sport coat and my father's worst tie, I listened intently to an annoyingly peppy salesman enthusiastically pitch his entire line of company products, including what must have been the world's heaviest residential vacuum cleaner. Unfortunately, the vacuum (a 71 pound, highly chromed behemoth) was the very product the room full of (now slightly less) eager beavers were to proselytize around town, selling a lá pyramidal fashion.

New footage of the Shared Summits Team making the climb to Camp 2 on the Abruzzi in less than ideal conditions.

[ Play Video ] 

Melinda, Chris' wife, spoke with the Baltimore Sun yesterday. "Climb to top means jitters down below " by Candus Thomson, Sun reporter, originally published July 6, 2007 .

[ Read the article here ]

At 5:30 am we heard from the climbers at C3 - they were feeling well and sounding energized.  The skies are clear, the winds low, and different than yesterday - NOT A CLOUD IN THE SKY!

At 9:30 am this morning, as he left Camp 2, Chris was jubilant.  As he reported the team having finally reached Camp 3 at 7:00 pm, after what was supposed to be a 5 hour trip, he rasped, "Today the mountain kicked my ass."

When we spoke to Chris this morning his first words were "Hey I guess you guys can see the amazing day - much better than yesterday...we have no winds, full sun...it's warm...we're just gonna start taking down the tent at Camp 2 and move it up to 3, over."

Well, here's a recap of the last 36 hours:

On Sunday, after looking over the weather charts, we expected light snowfall Monday and Tuesday followed by a window of relatively clear weather and little precipitation through mid Saturday.  The climbers decided to leave Monday morning for Camp 2 with the goal of summiting on Thursday (Friday as a back-up) and returning safely before the window closes on Saturday.  If you are on the east coast, 9 hours behind us, that would have them forging minus 20 temps and 40 mph winds as you are barbecuing wieners on July 4th.  As it turned out, the storm on Monday was more substantial than expected. Despite leaving at 3am, the constant snowfall and, at one time 60 mph winds, had them arriving at C2 11 hours later.  Over the last 24 hours it has snowed about 2 feet, and a kind of snowy fog, limiting visibility, has persisted. So they decided to stay put today, likely delaying the summit push to Friday morning (Thursday afternoon east coast time). 

This morning the Shared Summits Climbers arose at 2 am and spent an hour getting something hot to eat and finalizing their packing before departing at 3 am for their second summit push on the Abruzzi.   The early morning weather was not auspicious as wet snowfall greeted their first steps out of camp.  As they progressed through the morning past ABC and then Camp One they faced the excitement of continued heavy snowfall and 60 mph winds - which they say made for some amazing video - but did not necessarily add to their hopes for getting to the summit.  They report the total trip took 11 hours and the weather was by far the worst they've experienced thus far.  At this point they are settled in at Camp Two for the evening, listening to winds whip the tent, hoping the expected weather window opens tomorrow as projected.  

As always, we'll keep you posted.

Joel Shalowitz

While the exciting videos and graphic sound-bytes regale you with the highly exposed exploits of three climbers clawing their way up K2, I'd like to point out that mountaineering has a rather soft underbelly most manly mountaineers refuse to publicly acknowledge. Once the Argonautic sounds of steel against rock and the "thunk, thunk" of ice-tools finding their purchase have ceased for the day, mountaineers then retire to a stinky nylon, flesh and feather sandwich called "Camp".