DISPATCHES

Heilprin

	click for dispatch photos

Three teams of American climbers took advantage of sunny skies over the past two days to punch out the route to Camp 1 and beyond on K2's North Ridge.

With impressive leads Sunday by Paul Teare and Ivan Ramirez, who had little gear to rely on because much of it has been buried in avalanches, the expedition succeeded in fixing the lines up to and 100 meters beyond Camp 1. Expedition members were accompanied by Greg Ritchie, filming for National Geographic television.

Teare led out as much as 200 meters (660 feet) with little or no protection. He had to tie two ropes together to reach Camp 1, and used only two ice screws during the entire lead. Ramirez, with two ice screws remaining, left Camp 1 to fix more rope. He climbed another 120 meters (400 feet) above the camp, had trouble setting an anchor in the loose rock and then retreated due to the mid-afternoon heat.

"The heat is oppressive. It really knocks you down more than the altitude," Teare said. "It's probably 85 degrees Fahrenheit, and you're wearing long johns, a climbing suit. But you can't take too much off either or the sun will cook you."

Behind them another team of climbers, including Fred Ziel, Jay Sieger, Heidi Howkins and Shawn O'Fallon, dug out buried ropes and carried up huge loads of gear. Both teams helped prepare Camp 1, digging out a platform from a bergshrund with an overhang that protects from avalanches.

While those teams were on the route, other climbers, Ziggy Emme, Ginger Russell, Drew Hansen, Mike Bearzi, Jeff Alzner and myself, carried ropes, tents, fuel, food and personal climbing gear to a cache on a rock outcrop at 5,410 meters (17,750 feet) at the start of the route. Getting there means navigating a moderate slope on a crevasse-ridden glacier.

Gill James, Jennifer Jordan and Terry Richard remained in Advanced Base Camp at 5,120 meters (16,800 feet). Part of the daily social scene also includes crossing paths with Japanese and Chinese climbing teams who are camped within sight of the Americans and cooperating on the climb. The four Japanese climbers replaced some of the Americans' ropes lower down on the climb, and the Chinese may be tapped to haul some of the Americans' ropes from a supply depot lower in the valley.

On Monday, Bearzi, Alzner, Emme and Hansen, along with Jeff Rhoads, National Geographic's director of photography for the expedition, headed up the lines to occupy Camp 1. It takes approximately seven hours to get from ABC up to Camp 1 at 5,800 meters (19,500 feet).

They planned to camp there for two nights and push the route up to Camp 2, which will be located nearly 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) higher on a prominent snow slope. The route between the camps goes over 45-degree ice slopes and traverses around several bends of rock.

After nearly a week of snowy weather at ABC, avalanches have been on everyone's minds. Though much of the route is relatively safe because it is too steep to hold much snow, a huge avalanche poured down to the right of the route on Monday in the mid-morning.

It missed the team of climbers by at least 100 meters (328 feet), but filled the valley above ABC with snow, dusted the gear cache and caused some apprehension among onlookers. The general rule of thumb is to wait at least a day for the slopes to unload and to assess the situation before resuming the climb — which is what the expedition did prior to heading up Sunday.

Since the same avalanche path has run three days in a row at about the same time, Ziel said the expedition should formally adopt "a before-dawn, early morning" strategy to get up the ropes to Camp 1 before 11am. Each of the climbing teams already have been getting pre-dawn starts.

"It's going to be a challenging climb because the conditions on K2 are very icy this year," said Sieger, who reached Camp 1V at 8000 meters (26,000 feet) on the North Ridge in 1995. "But [the avalanche danger] isn't any higher than in years before. It's always high between ABC and Camp 2 after a snowstorm."

— John Heilprin, MountainZone.com Correspondent

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