The Team: Chris Warner and Tao Franken are teaming up for this ambitious double-header.

Chris Warner, the owner of Earth Treks, has been on ten 8000 meter peak expeditions. He has summited on Cho Oyu , Everest , Shisha Pangma and Lhotse . In 2002, he attempted both Broad Peak and K2. His second summit bid on Broad Peak ended on an avalanche prone 50 degree snow slope, just 150 feet from safer terrain. His attempt on K2 ended in tragedy, as a friend fell from thousands of feet above and landed 500 feet from Chris and his partner. The first on the scene, Chris and his climbing partner, pronounced him dead. Chris is anxious to complete a challenge begun three years ago.

Tao Franken is the owner of Bomber Gear, a high-end kayak accessories business, and a mountaineering guide for Earth Treks. Tao has a long and decorated past as a competitive adventure sports athlete (from Rodeo Kayaking to BMX). Tao has an impressive ice climbing resume with numerous WI 5 and 6 solos. This will be Tao's first expedition to an 8000 meter peak. Chris and Tao have been climbing together for nearly 20 years.

The Plan

The journey to basecamp begins in the city of Islamabad, Pakistan. Here the team will meet before flying to Skardu, in Pakistan's infamous Northern Area. An 8-9 day trek brings us to basecamp. Basecamp is located at 17,000 ft.on the Godwin-Austen Glacier below the mountain's triangular South Face.

Broad Peak (8047 meters/26,401 feet)

Standing on the opposite side of a glacial valley from K2, Broad Peak is the 12th highest mountain in the world. The standard route of ascent is the west ridge. Our base camp will actually be at the bottom of K2, a 2+ hour walk from the base of the route. The climb up to camp 1 (19,800 ft) ascends long snow slopes up to 50 degrees. Camp 2 (20,400 ft) is reached by climbing snowfields and a few rocky steps, before arriving on the crest of the ridge. From Camp 2, the route follows the ridge crest. At first it is moderately technical, easing above 23,000 feet. Camp 3 is located below some seracs at 24,000 ft. Summit day involves climbing snow slopes from 30 to 50 degrees, leading to a col between the main and central summits. Steeper slopes (50-60 degrees) lead to the rocky and corniced summit ridge. First you climb over a false summit and then scramble for another half of a mile (above 8000 m), before reaching the true summit.

Our plan is to acclimatize on Broad Peak. Upon reaching Base Camp (around July 4th), we will establish a temporary camp at the base of the route. We will ferry gear to the site of Camp 2, sleep here for a few nights, then descend to BC. Once the weather forecasts indicate a window is opening, we will climb from BC to Camp 2. The following day we will carry our tent and gear to C3. The following day we will head for the summit. We anticipate a summit bid for mid to late July.

K2 (8,611 meters/28,251 feet)

Less than 250 people have summited the world's second tallest mountain. K2 is much steeper than Everest. The climbing is harder. The weather is worse. With a history of epic ascents, K2 has earned its nickname: The Savage Mountain. The SSE Ridge (a.k.a. the Cessen Route): First attempted by British mountaineer Doug Scott and his friends, it was finally pushed through to the summit by a team of Basque climbers. Since then, despite many more attempts, only 8 teams have summited K2 via this route.

The SSE Ridge is arguably the "safest" route on K2. Like every route on this peak it is very steep and consistently technical. Every successful team has relied on fixed ropes and pre-placed camps to reach the summit. To date, no American has summited via this route. Our plan is to climb it in pure alpine style: no high altitude porters, no oxygen, no fixed lines and no pre-placed camps. We will start the climb with all our gear loaded on our backs. However, we do know that a team of Czech and a team of Norwegian climbers will also be on this route, hopefully wrapping up long before we arrive (they will have been on the mountain for almost two months before we start our K2 climb).

The base of the route is about 1.5 hours above base camp. It is an easy walk, across a moderately sloped glacier to the start of the climbing. A long couloir rises from the glacier and leads us toward the ridge, which is climbed just to the left of the crest. Most parties establish Camp 1 at 20,000 feet, below a rock tower. Camp 2 is usually placed at 23,000 feet, above an area called the white desert. Climbing to this point can be extremely difficult, with numerous rock steps and steep snow fields. Camp 3 is placed just above the intersection of the SSE Ridge and the Abruzzi Route (route of first ascent and so called normal route), as close to 8000 meters (26,240 ft.) as possible.

Summit day on K2 is the most dangerous time on the climb. The ridge fades into a headwall, with a steep couloir called the Bottleneck providing the best route to the upper mountain. Conditions in the Bottleneck vary from Styrofoam like snow, which accepts easily kicked and secure steps, to bullet proof ice or even ice covered by powdery snow. Climbing out of the Bottleneck is tricky as it steepens near the top and leads onto an exposed snowy "Traverse". Above the Traverse, things remain tricky, depending on the conditions. Finally the summit ridge eases off and the 8611 m./28,250 ft. summit is reached.

In the past, some of the strongest Himalayan climbers of all time have turned back within a hundred feet of the summit. Climbers have taken as many as 20 hours to climb from high camp to the summit, a vertical gain of less than 700 m./2200 ft. The climbing can take that long simply because the snow and ice conditions can be so poor and even in the best of conditions, the climb is hard and scary.

There is no lingering on the summit of K2: snap some photos and go. It is a race to get down alive. After posing for photos, you need to set your sites on getting to at least the safety of C3.

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Expedition Blues: A tale of lost luggage, landslides and a failure to reach New Jersey

Skardu, Pakistan
June 30, 2005

"A journey," the old saying goes, "should start with a first step," not a thunder-storm over New Jersey. All the flights from DC to Newark (where I would connect with my Pakistan bound flight) were cancelled. I waited on 6 different lines for more than 5 hours, and at the end of line number 7, I was asked to pay $739 to get a seat on the next available flight (departing from a different airport and two days later). To add to the misery, the employees of United Airlines somehow lost my baggage, despite the flight never departing. I spent the next day at the airport tracking down the bags. And then, as I was about to fly, I spent two more hours trying get my return ticket sorted out (which American Airlines somehow cancelled). I eventually arrived in Islamabad on June 26, days behind schedule, and was whisked onto a 40 minute flight to Skardu, the gateway to the Karakorum Mountains. Despite the frustrations of dealing with the employees of airlines on the edge of bankruptcy, I was lucky.

Tao arrived in Islamabad, where the temperatures rose to 115 degrees, on June 22. One of his duffels went missing. The agency failed to meet him at the airport. Angry cab drivers fought for his fare. And he was told there were no rooms at the hotel. Days later his duffel arrived. And he was lucky.

It was our 800 pounds of climbing gear, high altitude food, tents, sleeping bags, satellite communication equipment, trekking boots, solar panels and clean underwear that were unlucky. I shipped them on June 16th, and was told they would arrive in Islamabad on June 21. I got an email from Tao, who had gone to Pakistan early to repack the gear into porter sized loads, stating that the gear had never arrived. The US shipping agent tracked them down in Islamabad, while the customs agent in Islamabad claimed they were in Saudi Arabia. Days passed and they failed to arrive. Finally the packages were traced back to New York, where they sat for 10 days, before being passed on to Saudi Arabia for another few days. When they finally arrived in Islamabad, late on the night of June 28th more problems unfolded. On the morning of the 29th, our agent found out that the paperwork needed to get the packages was in a different city (Lahore). And the phone of the guy who had them? Well, it wasn't working. Calls to the US agent weren't going to work, as noon in Pakistan is 3 a.m. in the US and the customs office closes at 3 p.m. (6 a.m. in the US).

What a fiasco. In a country with a rich history of problems to be solved, our Pakistani agent called some friends in Lahore, who eventually tracked down the man with the papers. At 2 p.m. copies were faxed to Islamabad. The agent raced to the Customs depot, which closes at 3 p.m. Finally, the bags were free to begin a 24 hour non-stop race along the Karakorum Highway towards Skardu. And race it was, with 3 drivers swapping the duties, and the highway itself in constant danger of landslides. You see, the mountains of Pakistan received record snow falls this year. Then Spring cast gloomy skies over the range slowing the snow melt. Just in the past few weeks, the river levels have been coming up, with rivers rising far above their banks and villages being flooded and bridges nearing collapse. If one of these bridges were to be swept into the torrents of the Indus River, the road would be closed for more than six months.

Meanwhile, Tao and I have been passing our time in Skardu. Boredom stands watch at the doorstep of our hotel room. But we did manage to commandeer a jeep one day and try to head into the hills. As we climbed ever higher on a pitted dirt road a river rose over its banks and turned the road ahead into a major tributary, with depths over the hood of the car. We were lucky enough to turn back, but the villagers just below us braced for the worst. In hours, their stone and mud houses, lining this narrow road, would likely be flooded.

With the gear finally in our possession, we are now busy re-organizing the loads. We hope to finish by midnight and start the jeep journey to Askole, the last village before the trek begins, at 4 a.m. Yesterday we met a team of Russian climbers, back from a reconnaissance of Masherbrum (K1). Landslides and raging rivers had cut the road from Skardu to Askole into 3 sections, taking them 2 days to complete what should have been a 7 hour journey.

Once we get to Askole, it will take us at least 6 days to reach base camp. Needless to say we are terribly delayed, but ever hopeful. At this rate we may arrive at the base of K2 on July 7th.

Chris Warner

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July 1 update:

Askole, Pakistan

We finished repacking all of our gear into porter sized loads at 1:30 a.m. on July 1st. Figuring it was silly to try to sleep for 2 hours, we grabbed a last shower and left Skardu at 2:40 a.m.

The trip was magical: with a sky full of stars, a sliver of moon, the shapes of giant peaks towering above us and the roar of the Indus River below. As dawn caught up with us, we were weaving along a dirt road, winding our way up small hills into lushly vegetated, expertly irrigated farming villages. And between these green oases, were stretches of stark desert, walls of unclimbed granite and cobbled river basins, where the road was an ever shifting and sometimes completely washed out intruder.

At dawn we rebuilt the road for the first time, tossing ever smaller boulders into a narrow but rushing river. Hours later, we faced the main brunt of the mighty Braldu River. With a flick of its liquid wrist, it had washed away a section of rock that had somehow clung to a vertical wall of poorly bonded gravel. Here we abandoned our pair of jeeps. With the help of our sirdar, cook, cook boy, a porter and the two drivers we shuttled about 40 loads to the next stretch of drivable road. Three jeeps appeared. They were actually trapped between two land slides, earning a pretty penny by shuttling groups like us to the next wash out.

By the end of our journey, taking 11 hours to go 60 miles, we shuttled between 3 sets of cars, moved a total of 4800 pounds worth of gear, and rebuilt three sections of road. Not bad for a group of climbers and base camp staff that missed a night's sleep.

We are now in Askole, the last village en route to K2. Porters are gathering, hoping to be chosen to carry our gear. They are eager to hike about 65 miles with us, gaining close to 7000 feet in elevation, carrying 50 pounds of our gear, plus their own, for a grand sum of $65. They will make about $7.30 a day for the next 9 days of back breaking, ankle twisting work, in temperatures ranging from 95 degrees down to the teens.

I will send more news form the trail. Tao and I couldn't be any more excited to have this journey actually underway.

Chris Warner

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Trekking to Base Camp

 K2 Dispatch 2
July 5, 2005

Goro 2 Campsite, day 4 of the trek

Trekking to K2 base camp is magical. The journey begins at the village of Askole, travels along the raging Braldu river, past the snout of the Biafo Glacier and eventually onto the top of the Baltoro and Savoy Glaciers. Towering above the valley floor are dozens of mountains, growing bigger, and more dramatic each day. Like the Himalayas, the Karakorum Mountains were violently thrust upwards as the Indian and the Tibetan plates collided. Both ranges are continuing to grow taller. But here, the peaks seem sculpted by more demonic gods. While Everest is a giant pyramid, the Trango Towers, Cathedral Peak, Paiju, and others are granite totems, or tombstones. They rise from the glaciers in seven to nine thousand foot, nearly vertical (and sometimes overhanging) sweeps of reddish granite.

Base Camp is Established

July 8, 2005
K2 Base Camp

We left Concordia at 6:30 a.m. and hiked a top the moraine-covered glacier with our train of porters and two German trekkers. Our first stop was Broad Peak's base camp, where we dropped some gear and chatted with some of the assembled teams. The gang from Field Touring and ATP's international team were happy for the distraction (in stark contrast to some well dressed teams from Europe who seemed to have graduated from an ego maniacs academy: their sneers, swagger and stylized coifs spoke volumes about their self importance). Perhaps their attitude comes from sitting in base camp for the last week, waiting for better weather. Seems as if some teams have placed tents at Camp 2, while most still haven't strapped on their crampons.

While Tao oversaw the storage of our Broad Peak equipment, I raced onwards to K2. In the few minutes it took him to sip a cup of tea, someone stole our stash of snow anchors. Noticing them missing, he searched and found them hidden between two tents. Of course, everyone claimed innocence. But the message was clear. Broad Peak's base camp is not the nicest place in the Karakorum this year.

In stark contrast is K2's base camp. I reached it seconds ahead of our quickest porters and selected a nice little spot just below the Norwegian team. Within hours of setting up our camp, we met members of nearly every other expedition. Here, the teams seem self-assured and seem genuinely happy to have someone new to talk to and climb with. Assembled on this last stretch of moraine-covered glacier are teams from Poland and Bulgaria, Norway, Ireland, the US, Japan, and the Czech Republic. As the season evolves we expect some old friends from Germany, Kazakhstan and Georgia (as in Soviet Georgia) to spice things up.

July 8th, is Tao's birthday. I gave him a piton that I found. It was obviously hard used on K2, scarred as it was pounded into a crack, rusted as it sat there through many a winter, and mangled as it was hacked free by some climber years ago. It may not seem like much, but to us climbers such things are treasured mementos.

We spent his birthday organizing food and gear, hanging with the Norwegians and developing a plan of action.

According to the forecasts, we can expect a small high-pressure system to arrive on Sunday and extend through Monday. Tuesday shows an increase in precipitation and Wednesday calls for the winds to increase. So on Saturday, in the afternoon, we will head over to Broad Peak base camp, collect our gear and establish a temporary camp at the base of the route. On Sunday, perhaps at 3 a.m. we will pack up all the gear and head for Camp 2, at approx. 21,000 ft. On Monday, if we are feeling good, we will climb as high as we can above C2, returning there for a second night. We expect to return to our base camp, in poor weather on Tuesday.

The purpose of this excursion is to get our gear up the mountain and to get our bodies acclimatized. If we pull this off, we will then be ready for a summit bid at the first sign of favorable weather.

All of this might sound fast, and it is, but we are feeling great and both adjust quickly to higher altitudes. It is certainly no less aggressive a schedule then I used on both Lhotse and Shisha Pangma, to great success. In fact on Lhotse, I tagged 23,000 feet, then went all the way down to Kathmandu (3,500 ft), before returning to BC two weeks later and going straight to the summit. On Shisha Pangma, I was about three weeks removed from the US when I summited, having only once touched 20,400 feet before heading for the summit.

But then again, the weather will determine all. As I write this an afternoon snow shower is blanketing the tents. There is something sinister about the Karakorum weather, as soon as you voice an optimistic plan, the clouds darken the sun and snow begins to fall.

Chris Warner

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Stretching it out on Broad Peak

July 13, 2005

The sun was just below the curvature of the earth, but the faded light was strong enough to show us the remaining few hundred feet of crumpled, tilted glacier leading to the col. We were at 24,500 ft on Broad Peak, having left the tents of Camp 2 just after 10 p.m. Below us everyone was asleep. They had no idea that the two Americans, who arrived at K2's base camp 5 days ago, would now be stretching the acclimatization game so dramatically. No one on either K2 or Broad Peak, even those teams that arrived in early June, had reached so high yet.

We did give ourselves one full day at base camp before setting off on this little adventure. On July 9th, after lunch, we carried gear to a spot at the base of Broad Peak. Waking at 3 a.m. we humped enormous loads up the ever-steepening face to C1. No ropes had yet been fixed and so we climbed the 30-55 degree slopes with care. I was the first to arrive at this cramped eagle's nest. Weeks earlier teams had claimed the obvious 6 or 7 tent platforms. Knowing that we would only spend one night there, I dug out a snowy ledge and reinforced it by stomping it and whacking it with a shovel blade. It was as good as the engineering involved in a hard won snowball fight. With the right water content and molding, the snowy ledge was as hard as a rock.

As I was setting up the tent, the next climber arrived, visibly angered that there wasn't a place for his tent (and it was barely 7 a.m.). When Tao arrived he shook his head in disbelief, at least twenty climbers were below him. A lot of sad little campers arrived at C1 and spent hours configuring tent platforms suitable only for a small circus' worth contortionists and acrobats.

We passed the day in blazing sunshine. At 19,000 feet, I wore just shorts and a t-shirt, preferring to work on my tan and drink liters of cold beverages.

July 11th saw us arising before dawn, and schlepping our bulging packs to C2. Once again I was the first too arrive at C2 and found a perfect platform, void of snow and just long enough for our tent. That old Calvinistic work ethic was proving itself divine. The views were amazing. K2 stood right in front of us. Turning golden in the light of dawn. The summit was now clearly visible, which may not have been a good thing. It is a long and tricky way from high camp to the summit of K2. The famed Bottleneck is just a tiny portion of the distance to be traveled.

Hours later the next group of climbers arrived. The same people who couldn't find a good spot at C1, now spent up to 4 hours carving platforms at the equally airy C2. (In either 2003 or 2004, a Czech climber stepped out of his tent and slipped over two thousand feet to the glacier below. He died before he could finish peeing.)

We whiled away the morning hours inches from the edge, once again stripping down to shorts and a t-shirt. Tao shifted his hopeful gaze from K2 to the seemingly close summit of Broad Peak. "Why don't we climb it alpine style," he says.

"Well Tao, the definition of Alpine Style is to start at the base, with out ever seeing the route, pre-establishing camps, etc. and climbing to the top. Clearly we can't do that, we already pre-established this camp."

"So it will be alpine style if we summit tonight."

"I guess we better get some sleep, since we have to start at 10 p.m."

Now neither of us was foolish enough to think we could pull this off, but we were more than foolish enough to give it a try. If conditions were perfect and our bodies could prevail, the summit was attainable.

With no moon in the sky, the blackness was thick. At 6900 meters (22,700 ft) the angle steepened and with both headlights slicing the darkness, we could just barely make out some kind of line in the snow face above us. I was in the front, with Tao told to stay at least 20 feet behind. I had an idea as to what that line was, maybe a crevasse slicing across the face. We were using both of our ice axes and kicking in the front points of our crampons. In the darkness it was impossible to tell the angle of the slope, but it must have neared 60 degrees. Climbing towards the line, it was obvious that this was a gaping crevasse, with the lower side having slumped two feet from the upper. We traversed below it, searching for a weakness that could be passed. Finally I found a place to sink my ice axes into the upper lip, spread my body weight over as large a surface area as possible and squirmed across the delicate snow bridge that spanned the crevasse. Tao followed. No rope connected us, so falling in that crevasse was to be avoided.

At 23,000 feet we came across the ancient remains of torn tents, the fabric frozen to the slope, with only the odd sock or used gas cylinder still in place. This is lower C3. With the light of a headlamp, this seemed like an eerie place, a graveyard with tattered nylon tombstones. I though back to the human remains I found at the base of Broad Peak in 2002. We think it may be the remains of Pete Thexton who died at C3 so many years ago.

Our next major problem was our speed of ascent. We were going too fast. In the blackness it was impossible to see the best route through the upper glacier, to the col (or saddle) that separates two of the summits above. We had to find just the right path through the maze of crevasses and seracs above. It was just 2:40 a.m. and the pre dawn light was at least an hour away. We took breaks as long as we dared in the frigid temperatures.

As the light finally caught us, I could see the line we needed to follow. Clearly all the snow that fell in Pakistan this winter had blanketed the glacier, smoothing it out into an ideal playground for aspirant summiteers. I strained my eyes and couldn't see a crevasse worth worrying about.

But now at 24,500 ft and barely 2000 feet from the summit the effects of climbing so high so fast were being felt. I was moving at a snail's pace, still breaking trail but stopping all too often to lie on my ice axes. Tao's head was beginning to pound, with a dizzying headache. It was time to turn around and end this silly game. But the sight was beautiful and ominous, with K2 catching the earliest of sunlight and to the southwest; dark gray clouds filling the sky, overflowing the dusty plains into the not quite impenetrable wall formed by the Karakorum Range. An old climber once told me that if Chogolisa, the peak down valley from K2 is covered in cloud, pack your bags and run for base camp.

We were back in C2 in less than 2 hours, returning from our adventure just as other climbers were preparing their breakfasts. I packed up and continued down, while Tao sought greater acclimatization by spending another night at C2.

Now, on the 13th, we are both in base camp. The promised storm arrived during the night. Tao broke trail through a foot of snow to reach the base of the mountain, arriving as I was eating breakfast. The snow continues to fall a few hundred feet above us, while it rains on our tents. The avalanches have been simply symphonic, rumbling twice a minute.

The forecast improves on Monday. We hope to be at Camp 2, ready to climb through the night again. This time our bodies will be as ready as our hearts.

Chris Warner

Just a Quickie?

July 15, 2005

We are enjoying the rest days at Base Camp. It snowed heavily on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Today, it has been wonderful, with brilliant sunshine and only the odd cloud dropping the odd flake of snow. The winds are whipping past the summits of Broad Peak, hopefully scouring away the fresh snow above 7,000 meters.

We have been examining the various weather forecasts and it looks like next week will be a productive one. Tao and I will head back to Broad Peak's Camp 2 just after midnight on Sunday. We should reach C2 by 9 a.m. The summit push will start at 10 p.m., our time, and hopefully see us on the top by 10 a.m. Monday (1 a.m. EST). The forecast is for stiff winds on Monday, but it plays into our long term plans. I'll tell you all about those next week.

Soon after we return to Base camp, we will be calling into DC101's Elliot in the Morning Show. The call in is tentatively scheduled for 8:30 a.m. (EST) on Tuesday and will be simulcast on their website.

While we are heading up Broad Peak, a lot of teams are moving back up K2. On that peak, teams have reached C3 on both the Abruzzi and SSE Ridges. Should make for an exciting week.

Chris Warner

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Snowstorm tears through Base Camp

July 17, 2005

Well our plans changed during the night. Last night the rain started at 6 p.m. and turned to snow a few hours later. At noon, it is still snowing. All of this precipitation was being pushed by tent shaking winds.

In the middle of the night, we rolled over in our sleeping bags, hiding from this harsh reality until the pull of strong coffee dragged us to the mess tent.

I spent most of the morning checking in with other teams. Seems as if on K2, lots of hopes were dashed. Then a fresh weather report rolled in, hinting at more bad weather by week's end. For those of us on Broad Peak, the summit still seems possible mid week. The K2 teams may need a few more days of good weather than is forecast, to pull off a summit bid this week.

Tao and I need to watch the conditions on Broad Peak. The big questions revolve around the snow: how deep is it? And will the combination of wind and sun compress the soft snow into a hard crust? If the snow is knee deep and soft, climbing to the summit will be incredibly difficult, if not impossible. If it is better compressed, then the summit should attract not only us, but some other strong teams.

We should know more by Tuesday.

Chris Warner
Earth Treks Inc.

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Broad Peak, the ever whimsical maiden

July 24th
K2 Base camp

At the crest of the swiss Alps lies the most famous alpine trinity: The Jungfrau, the Monch and the Eiger. Broad Peak also has three summits and the folk tales surrounding them might be the same. The Jungfrau is a maiden, pure of heart. She is protected by the Monch (a monk) against the evil intentions of the Eiger (an ogre). To the horror of the ogre, the monk is just too good at its job. The same holds true on Broad Peak, where many a suitor comes calling and too many are rejected.

At midnight we left for the summit, turning around at 2:30 a.m. in sub zero temperatures. It was simply too cold to push upwards: the risk of frostbite tickled our toes and fingers, convincing us to retreat.

So we tried again Wednesday night/Thursday morning. Wary of the cold, we left at 4 a.m. This time a third person (Don, from Bishop, California) joined our foolish circus. Aahh, the conditions were much improved, with the footsteps to C3 frozen solid and the air temps much warmer. The three of us gained altitude quickly. When we reached 7000 meters (23,050 ft.), we were suddenly awed by site of the 27 (TWENTY-SEVEN)climbers who were strung out between 7500 and 7700 meters. It was an impressive and unsustainable site. But it filled our hearts with hope. Clearly with that many people clamoring for the top, a firm trail would be stamped in the soft snow.

As we passed through C3, at 7200 meters, we met the first of the summit hopefuls that had turned back. This sad Frenchman explained to us that the snow was just too deep. We dismissed him and motored on. As we reached 7500 meters, we saw a group of climbers turn back. No longer able to see the climbers out in front (they were hidden by the curves and dips of the glacier), it seemed obvious that the assault on Broad Peak was coming to an end. A super charged Italian (Diego) attempting a speed ascent from BC, was the first to descend to us. "It is impossible, the snow is too deep."

Ahhh, but the sun was shining, and a picnic seemed in order before we would return to C2. We broke out a stove, melted some snow to refill our bottles and squeezed down some packets of GU. A picnic at 25,000 feet lacks ants and romance. But the sun felt good upon our bodies.

Above us, the mountain was still crawling with climbers, and somehow, those at the front of the pack refused to accept defeat. They had been battling the deep snow since two a.m. and nearly 10 hours later their commitment had not ebbed.

We packed up our meager things and returned to the fight. Within an hour we passed 6 more climbers as they descended. Above 7600 meters, Don decided to return to C2 and so Tao and I motored on.

Just below the col (a saddle between two peaks), we came across some Spaniards slowly descending. At this point it was actually so warm that I was climbing in two lightweight t-shirts (at nearly 26,000 ft). I clambered onto the col at 5 p.m. The wind, whipping up the Chinese side was bitter cold so I put on all my clothes, including down pants and a down jacket. At the col, I met some strong Italians. No one had reached the true summit, they told me. Broad Peak unfortunately has a false summit, some handful of meters lower and about an hour closer than the main summit. Above me, strung along the ridge were nearly 20 climbers struggling to get down from the false summit before darkness caught up with them. Most were suffering from some level of exhaustion and dehydration.

Well, my little mind started to twirl. Certainly tagging the false summit was not what I had come here for (although I could do that and be back in my sleeping bag by midnight). I am something of an expert in nearly summiting (having once turned back at 7800 meters on Broad Peak and at over 8000 meters on Nanga Parbat). No this time, I wanted the real thing, the tippy top. The sun was dipping on the horizon. It was time to dig a shelter into the nearest snow bank. If we could find the perfect spot, we could build a snow cave, protected from the wind, in which to hide out for the night. Of course the lack of a sleeping bag, sleeping pads, and the other luxuries was just an inconvenience. Give us a good shelter and we would survive a night at 26,000 ft (7900 meters) and hopefully be frostbite free in the morning.

I rounded a hump on the ridge and wouldn't you know it, two Poles also had the same idea. They were scooping out a sad looking dish from the snow. I thought I spotted a better place. I dug and dug, good snow cave engineering tips colliding in my brain. Beneath a layer of wind crusted snow, lay a pocket of the sugar-like snow, all fine grained and not sticking together. But unfortunately, even with Tao sliding face first into the hole we couldn't seem to make the space big enough.

As the sun set, our cave was barely long enough and too tight. We kept digging. Finally, when we both tried to lay down in it, my breathing went haywire. Believe it or not, something about spending the night crammed into a double wide coffin at 26,000 feet, with no room to wiggle and the top inches from my face, while super-cooled, oxygen depleted air poured over me from a manhole sized exit slightly above me, through which blowing snow could cover my face and slowly but surely suffocated me, made me a bit over anxious. The sun set. I still couldn't control my breathing. I was having a silly little anxiety attack just because my bed wasn't ideal. Pitiful.

I climbed out of the hole. I didn't care how cold and miserable the Poles looked in their hovel, I was prepared to join them. "No problem," they said "we are going down in 15 minutes." No explanation was possible in the blowing wind. The night was surreal enough.

As I stood outside the two caves, the moon already high in the sky and the sun long since lost below the horizon, I heard distant shouts. It sounded like the descending climbers were moving slowly. I had little idea that another Pole had broken his ankle (or lower leg) and that a rescue was unfolding.

The two Poles popped out of their scoop in the snow, grunted their goodbye and headed into the darkness. Tao and I moved into their roomier and airier hole. The wind blew snow on top of us. We strategized our survival plan.

Now three things are critical to surviving in those conditions: insulation, discipline and a willingness to cuddle with anyone. Insulation: we had only our down jackets and pants, our mittens and finally our packs. We laid our packs on the ground and used them like tiny mattresses, hoping to insulate our vital organs from the ice cold surface. Discipline: We had a stove and pot with us. It became critical to drink warm liquid every few hours. It was also critical that we kept track of every piece of gear and clothing and that we never allowed ourselves to drift into hypothermia (a cooling of our core temps). Cuddling: Our only source of heat was each other and our most vital body parts were our feet. If we left our feet inside our boots, both of us would suffer frostbite and possibly be unable to walk in the morning. We took off our boots and started to rub our feet. Then when we were ready to settle in for a few hours of escapism (I slept like a baby while Tao fiddled and fidgeted) we needed to put each other's feet inside the other's jacket for warmth. Now try this at home. Lay down with your partner in one of those top loading freezers. Each of you should be on your side. Then entangle your legs over and around each other, slipping your sized 14 feet deep into the other's jacket. When you feel the urge, start to rub your partner's toes. Get the blood to flow into the heels. And just when the pain in your hips gets too great, you both must un-knot, roll over and tangle up again. While this is happening your feet start to refreeze.

Every few hours we would disentangle to heat some water. High above the moon bathed the world in false daylight, all the brightness but none of the heat.

We figured the sun would hit us at 6 a.m. but it seemed to get snagged on a rock outcrop not 50 feet away. We continued to cuddle. The wind grew stronger at dawn. Loose snow started to fill our hole. Slowly we stood up and saw plumes of blowing snow whipping from the summit like a giant white flag. Our boots, made of two layers of techno-superior polymers, were frozen solid and nearly impossible to put on. Our hands froze and refroze as we tugged on laces and tied sloppy knots.

The sun was still stuck on the rock above us. The waving white flag of blowing snow tearing from the summit made the choice obvious. "Surrender all ambitions now, the Maiden has seen you two cuddling all night and is not impressed by your silly attempt at seducing a true summit out of her."

We could see the true summit. It seemed so close. But the ferocity of the winds reinforced the message. Before we could strap on our crampons, the winds and humidity combined to cap the summit with a lenticular cloud, the cloud most feared by all climbers because it signals high winds (think of them as stationary hurricanes guarding the summit).

We were sad, yet happy, to beat a retreat from our little hole in the snow at 26,000 ft.

From the col we dropped down to a steep sided, but well marked trail carved in the snow. A few hundred feet lower we saw some abandoned ice axes and ski poles, below them a tell-tale track in the snow where someone had tripped and slid a short way.

At an awkward crevasse we met an Iranian climbing upwards. His English was worse than my Farsi, but I think the look on our faces, combined with the now storm-force winds above, should have convinced him to turn back. He climbed on.

Later we came across an Italian. He was still in sight of Camp 3, but he was heading up. He spoke little English, asked for water (which we had none) and climbed into the storm.

At C3, a frantic Italian grilled us about their missing friend. It was the same one we passed an hour ago. He had been on yesterday's summit bid. Had fallen asleep on the descent, in the dark, unnoticed and was now reclimbing the mountain. No one seemed to know anything about the Iranian (both climbers later made it down OK).

We stumbled down to C2. Just above it, we met some Americans (Don who climbed to 7600 meters with us yesterday) and Mike. They were glad to see us, but busy laying rope for the rescue of the Pole with a broken ankle. Now there is twist to the story about the injured Pole. A few days earlier at C2, we got into the following conversation: Me: "Artur you climbed 4 8000 peaks, many by new routes or in winter, with the famous Jerzy Kuczuska. Why have your returned to climbing after a retirement of 15 years?" Artur: "My wife, she comes down to the kitchen table and says, Artur you are getting old and fat. Go back to the mountains and come home a skinny boy."
Broad Peak is only one of the many maidens that climbers find hard to please.

P.S. A heart felt thanks goes out to all those who helped rescue Artur Hazjer from high on Broad Peak. While his partners carried the majority of the burden, a number of other folks played crucial roles in this successful multi-day operation. We are proud to call these people our friends and admire their courage.

Chris Warner

Earth Treks Inc.

The Score Board

July 31, 2005
K2 Base camp

The weather forecasts, through August 6th, call for storm force winds on the summit of K2. This is obvious from base camp. Lenticular clouds sit upon the summit, their leeward edges curling back like eddies in the jet stream. The visual effect is of an evil bird grabbing with it's talons for any climber foolish enough to approach K2's top. Lower down, loose snow is blowing from the SSE and Abruzzi ridges.

The mood at base camp is somber. Some teams, like the Norwegians, have been here for more than 60 days. Hope is in short supply and grows dimmer with each new forecast. On the radio we hear the tales of record monsoon rains in India. The weather men offer such bright forecasts as "the forecasts deteriorates a little bit with every model run. The sky is mostly cloudy with repeated snow fall. This situation does not change for the next seven days."

Tao and I remain optimistic, preferring to look at the calendar instead of the forecasts. Our permit is set to expire on August 20. Anything can happen in the next three weeks.

While the Polish-Bulgarian team is re-burying a body they found yesterday (wrapped in a tent: apparently avalanched off the Shoulder, a man, beyond recognition but wearing "Planet Mountain" brand clothing, European, perished in the mid-80's), I thought I'd use my leisure time to update the "scoreboard."

The great July 21 summit push on Broad Peak yielded some wild little epics.
This is what I've gathered from talking to a ton of people:

1. 30 people (including us) were on their way to the summit at some point. About 18 of them touched the fore summit of Broad Peak late in the afternoon. None of them managed to reach the true summit.
2. On the descent the tired climbers, many dehydrated, started to weaken. One Pole fell about 60 meters, breaking his leg. His team reached C3 about 4 a.m. A Slovak fell a reported 400 meters and was uninjured. A Czech fell 150 meters and suffered minor frost bite. One Italian suffered extensive frost bite on his hands and feet and was later evacuated from base camp. And finally an Italian, crawled into a crevasse somewhere around 7500 meters during the nighttime descent. In the morning, although just 1 hour and in plain sight of C3, he was struck by a "need" to return to Broad Peak's col where he was certain he'd find refuge on the Chinese side of the mountain. Tao and I spoke to him while we descended, thinking he had just begun climbing from C3. It wasn't until we reached C3 and met some other Italians, that we found out he was "missing," never having returned from the summit bid. His partner climbed up to him, at nearly 7700 meters, and convinced him to return to C3.
3.  A few days later, the delightful and determined Kazakhs, Sergey ??? and Dennis Urbuko, finally reached the main summit of Broad Peak, via a new and scary route they pioneered on the SW Face. This season, despite more than 60 climbers reaching Broad Peaks' base camp, only TWO climbers reached the summit.
4. Just one climber, with Broad Peak summit ambitions remains: Don Bowie, our friend from California. He found food and lodging at K2's base camp after everyone else headed for home. If the weather improves he will give Broad Peak another attempt. (Don't worry Don's Mom, he is well fed and happy.)

Meanwhile on K2: The strong Czech expedition attempting the SSE Ridge, reached 7300 meters before returning home. The Norwegians, also on that route, have reached the same high point and have camps established to C3 at 7050 meters. The two man Japanese expedition has acclimatized on the Abruzzi, leaving a depot at 7800 meters. They plan to make their summit bid on the SSE Ridge, but need to depart base camp for home on August 10. On the Abruzzi, the Polish-Bulgarian team placed a camp at 8000 meters, but cancelled their summit bid due to extreme cold and deteriorating weather. They struggled in blinding snow to reach base camp. The "American Team", has reached C3. The Hungarian team has reached at least C2. The Irish Team (now just Banjo Bannon) has also reached C3. The Irish and Polish-Bulgarian plan to head up this week, despite the lousy forecasts, to either tag the summit or collect gear so they can go home.

K2 has a long history of August summits (with even a few September successes). Just last year teams summited on August 9th. Tao and I are hopeful. A few days ago we met with the Norwegians and Japanese and devised a plan that maximized everyone's summit bids. Now we are just waiting for a weather window, which will hopefully arrive before these two teams have to head home.

And just to complete the K2 team roster: the Kazakhs are coming. Apparently these hard men have been training in a hyper baric chamber, and so should be acclimatized for a quick summit bid. I have no idea which route they hope to climb. We heard they were delayed for two weeks in Islamabad, overcoming mountains of bureaucracy.

Rumors in circulation claim that only one Austrian woman has summited Gasherbrum 1 and two men have summited Gasherbrum 2. I advise you to check with www.mounteverest.net to get a better idea of what happened on those peaks. But if this is even close to true, of the approximately 300 climbers in this area of Pakistan, 5 have summited an 8000 meter peak. Whooo!!!!

And in the meantime at K2's base camp, the teams not burying the dead keep busy reading, gossiping and praying for better weather.

Chris Warner

Earth Treks Inc. 

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A Summit Push

Chris Warner called in via his satellite phone on Wednesday with the following message:

August 3, 2005 - 6:42 am EST from K2, Camp 2:

Chris Warner 

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At Camp 3!

Chris called in from his satellite phone...
August 4, 2005 - 10:15 am EST from K2, Camp 3:

I will call in again to the Elliot in the Morning Show on DC101 (www.dc101.com) during my descent on Monday (August 8) at 8:30 am EST.

Wish us luck!"

Chris Warner

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Still Snowing!

Chris left us a new voice mail this morning...

August 5, 2005 - 8:16 am EST. K2 Camp 3.

Anyway - that is the story from K2. I will call again tomorrow with an update."

[Chris called again a few hours later this morning and they now have over a meter of snow!]

Chris Warner
Earth Trek, Inc.

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A Bang or a Whimper?

K2 Base Camp
August 8, 2005

Writing the final dispatch for an expedition is always hard. The end always comes with a BANG, not a whimper. I find myself a little drained and fighting for the words needed to sum up months of physical and emotional struggles. Sometimes, it is easier, like when the summit is reached. That always provides a convenient way to wrap up a climbing trip. But all too often the summit eludes us: weather, death and/or climbing conditions force us to turn back.

On this trip we did not reach the top. We took a gamble on the only summit shot that appeared: the tiniest of weather windows. Just about every climber in base camp shouldered their pack when Sunday looked hopeful. Tao and I headed up the SSE Ridge, climbing on Wednesday to C2 and on Thursday to C3. The weather was perfect and the climbing superb. The route is so aesthetic, ascending steep snow slopes, passing between rocky towers, traversing rock bands, wriggling through gullies of ice, and stepping airily across knife edge ridges. It was everything a mountaineer dreams of: technical and delicate climbing with a world class back drop.

We were feeling fantastic by the time we reached C3. The plan was for us to spend two nights there, at 7050 meters (23,300 ft). During the "rest day" we would fix ropes toward the Shoulder at 7800 meters. The Norwegians would meet us there and we would continue on to C4 together.

Meanwhile on the Abruzzi Ridge, climbers were passing through Camp 2 on the way to C3. We would all join forces for a summit bid on Sunday. The combined strength of a dozen plus climbers would produce a powerful summit team.

But sometime on Thursday night the winds tore across K2, bringing a 24 hour blizzard with it. At C2 and above, more than a meter of snow fell. Tao and I were trapped in the tents at C3 until Saturday morning. Radio calls went back and forth. At 9 p.m. on Friday night a new forecast came in from Switzerland. It was calling for the snow to stop late that night, but Sunday's summit wind speeds doubled to nearly 30 knots per hour. And the period of good weather that was supposed to have stretched from Saturday to Monday was now expected to end in storm by Sunday noon.

It was the classic dilemma: we were 6000 feet above base camp, the slopes were covered in a meter of fresh snow and bad weather was coming back in less than 36 hours. To move up was foolish, the slopes were primed to avalanche and even if the summit could be reached, the coming storm would kill us on the descent. And descent from C3 was equally crazed: with a meter of fresh snow, and the lower slopes of the route forming the sides of a funnel that drained most of the South Face, the avalanche risk was extreme. In 2002 six friends were torn from the lower slopes by an avalanche that killed one of them. The timing of our retreat was critical. The snow that had been falling was very, very cold, meaning that the crystals hadn't yet bonded together. Any early avalanches would be of soft snow, not the heavier, denser slabs that would tear from the South Face as the sun and wind compressed the crystals into giant chunks of snow.

Tao and I were descending before 7 a.m., greeting the rising sun as we started the first of 120 estimated rappels. We were carrying a bunch of gear for the Norwegians, just in case they couldn't make it back up to C3 to retrieve their more expensive gear. About 2 hours later we dropped into C2, where the Norwegians and some Americans were holed up. By 11:30 we were at the base of the mountain. We were back in BC for just a few hours before the first giant avalanche completely scoured the lower slopes of the route. No one was caught in that avalanche.

The weather on K2 this season has been horrible. Reminds me of the summer I spent here in 2002. Both years, teams of strong climbers had prepared the routes, but every summit bid ended with high winds and snow blowing the climbers back to the safety of base camp. In 2002, tough, two climbers were killed. This year, we have all been lucky.

The forecasts are depressing. There is a potential window forecasts for 9 days from now (and you know how accurate a nine day forecast in middle America can be, Karakorum forecasts change daily). Tao and I have decided that we can not put our other responsibilities on hold any longer. The forecasted window seems too elusive to delay a return home until September. We have called for porters and hope to be leaving base camp on August 10, arriving in the US around August 18. We are leaving with most of the other climbers. Perhaps 10-11 climbers, from a handful of teams, are staying. We wish them the best of luck.

As I started this dispatch, wrapping up an expedition, especially one that failed to summit, is tough. I really wanted to reach the summit of K2. I wanted to reach it for deeply personal reasons. As I find myself getting older and my responsibilities getting greater, I know that my chances to accomplish such a monumental goal are limited. The timing of my tagging the top couldn't seem better than right now: my body can still handle the strains and my mind can still process the challenges, and before my heart finds itself too tied to home, and before the spark that fires my soul finds itself fueling different types of adventures.

But K2 could care less about bending to my time frame. Like many climbers before me, I am destined to walk from this mountain wondering when I will be able to return to her slopes and test myself, one more time, against the challenges she has to offer.

Chris Warner

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