After the last dispatch, Chris and PV shuttled some loads from our icefall depot to the Abruzzi ABC, continuing to move our equipment up in the pious hope that we would be able to find a way around to our planned ABC on the upper Godwin-Austen Glacier. Because we had eliminated the other options in theory or practice, the only remaining one would be to follow around the base of the Abruzzi, trying to slip between crevasse fields and avalanche slopes, as had the American team in 1978.

The next morning Chris and PV climbed a rock spur beyond the Abruzzi ABC to look out over the glacier, and found the worst. Not only was the glacier seamed with partly covered crevasses from wall to wall, but even up the slopes below their feet were continuing crack-lines with the disconcerting absence of a bergschrund (the normally well-defined crack below which the glacier moves). Don and I were not in the best of spirits as we carried loads from BC to ABC for a council of war; independent of the fact that we had both risen from our sick-beds (Don recovering from a record-setting alimentary ailment, me fighting a chest infection), it is hard at the best of times to give up on the dream one has chased for much of the last year. We had been optimistic that the low-snow conditions would be perfect for our new route, but had not considered that they might block access to it completely. Global climate change is a reality on high-mountain glaciers, which shift with the season, and nobody we knew had been on the upper glacier since a ski-equipped team in the mid-90s. We all had to swallow hard and accept that we were going to record the most abject failure yet of all the teams which have ever pretended to challenge the E Spur of K2 - retreating before we had even seen our objective.

In a convention at the Abruzzi ABC we all agreed first that we had no intention of dying in a very likely-looking crevasse fall trying to push our original approach. The next thing accepted by unanimous vote with one abstention was that I, barely able to speak, was going to have to go straight back to BC to recover. Back at more global concerns, we agreed that our aim remained to do a new, safe, elegant route on K2. Conveniently, the best candidate satisfying all these criteria was almost right above our heads, on the SE Spur of the mountain but some 400-600m to the right of the Abruzzi. Indeed, seeing this Spur for the first time, I had the impression that, had the Duke of Abruzzi arrived a century later, he would have opted for the snow and ice slopes to the right rather than the rock to the left.  We agreed that this should be the line, if at all possible pushed to the lower-right corner of the brooding Black Pyramid, rather than to the lower left (the Abruzzi). The main danger on the lower slopes would clearly be rockfall, which we would try to avoid by remaining on rock spurs, and by moving between them by dark. Once around the base of the Black Pyramid the route should be safe on a ridge and should be mainly snow to the apex of the Pyramid, where it would join the normal route at 7300m. Our new dream was consecrated by Chris, Don and PV hustling off to collect the last loads from the depot, leaving me to stagger back to BC with our now-useless snowshoes and marker wands.

The two days since our paradigm shift have been the warmest and sunniest since our arrival at BC. Chris, Don and PV have pushed out over 500m of fixed line and have established a tent at Camp 1. Chris reports that the views and climbing of the last days, while certainly not easy, are the best he has ever experienced on K2.  The team will consolidate their gains tomorrow morning before PV descends to BC to begin his walk out. Some spectacular images from the front lines should follow in another dispatch tomorrow. 

For me the time in BC has been among the most inordinately frustrating experiences I have ever had in the mountains, but there are no short-cuts to the recovery process: I will be no use to the team if I am half-recovered for the push around the Black Pyramid, let alone higher up. While Chris, Don and PV are invisible from BC, today our Czech neighbors (9 climbers) pushed to Camp 2 on the Cesen route (SSE Spur), in full view of BC. A six-strong German team has established Camp 1 on Broad Peak, and our 11 newly-arrived Russian neighbors have just set off to follow them up tomorrow. The other Russian team, with 16 members and camped at the base of the "BC Strip", is having more luck with crevasses than we had, and has started carrying loads to an ABC on the west side of the mountain to attempt a new route there. The weather forecast remains good for another 6 days, which all teams will need to use to the full.

Bruce Normand