For the past week, we’ve been waiting for two things: first, for the team cargo to arrive, and second for the weather to clear.
Broad Peak base camp
Very early start today, I assume to avoid glacier melt as much as possible. Woke up before it even started getting bright. The terrain the same rolling glacier landscape as the days before. Lots of up-and-down, pretty exhausting.
To Goro II
Once again I got scammed. Every day they’d tell us something like “breakfast at 7, we leave at 8” then they’d be shaking my tent at 6 and we’d hit the trail before 7. So today I was way ahead of the announced schedule, but they were yet another half an hour early.
Onto the glacier
Pretty tough and long hike. Loose rocks all the way made it really exhausting. The Sherpas were of course moving really quick, so I felt pretty drained when we stopped for lunch.
Reaching shade
20km or so trek to Paju camp (about 3300m). Only 200m gain, but lots of up-the-cliff down-to-the-river all day so my watch was saying 700m climb total.
The Drive
Had a huge breakfast at the hotel since we were up to a 6-7 hour drive.
Skardu here I come
After ten hours at Doha airport I mostly spent just walking around aimlessly, it was time to now fly to Islamabad. The flight wasn’t long, but it was just long enough to both have a short nap and watch The Matrix: Resurrections. I’d probably need to watch that movie like two more times to be able to form a coherent opinion on it.
Getting through border control was much smoother than I expected. They just asked a few questions to see if I get too stressed out, kinda how Americans do it too. All my baggage arrived in one piece too, so shortly I was on my way to my hotel for the night. A night much shorter than I’d like… Since my flight on to Skardu was at 6am in the morning, it meant I could only get 4-5 hours of sleep, and while a shower helped get in the mood, I still kept waking up every half an hour from weird dreams in a panic that I overslept.
Halfway there
Ten hours transit at Doha airport. Sleeping is always an option, though with these time differences I’m not sure it’s a good idea. The airport is crowded (and of course about half the people don’t care about the mask requirement) so finding an open seat near a power outlet was a challenge. But at least there’s this weird yellow lamp-bear thing.
The visa ordeal
I’ve been planning an expedition to Broad Peak and K2 for almost two years now. At first the plan was to climb last summer, but then covid ruined that. The expedition was then rescheduled to this summer, while last summer I visited Denali instead. However my departure to Pakistan faced some unexpected obstacles.
のこぎりひので
大型遠征が近づくと、体力を整えるためにトレーニングで行く登山の時間も伸びるが、毎週毎週同じ道歩くのも飽きる。御岳から名栗湖に抜けるルートは楽しいが、代替もほしいので今度は奥多摩から鋸山、大岳山、御岳山と日の出山を超えるルートを試してみた。最初行ったときは逆方向で御岳から登ったが、日の出山から下るようにすることで終わったらつるつる温泉に入れるのでありがたい。
