DISPATCHES

Ziel

The following I think is valuable information for people who travel to K2 in the future. The rivers are the big issue getting safely into and away from the north side of K2. Rumor has it the Qogori River and the Shaksgam River are not traversable until late August. Well it's true that high water from summer glacier melt is extreme in July, but the fact is that this year a two-man German expedition got into the Qogori Glacier and I got out without drowning or losing any equipment.

The water is big. You do need camels to wade and swim through the deep and fast water. If you fall off your camel you could easily die. If your camel falls in fast water it will not get up and you will be flushed away with your animal. It is not a trip I'd recommend to everybody. But, if you've "gotta" do it, it can be done.

I did have to wait three days just to cross the Qogori River. Finally on one early morning the raging torrent was low enough to nudge the camels across. The big river was miles of camel wading and swimming between sandbars separated by braided strands of deep brown, fast-flowing streams. Secret: do the wet parts before 3:00pm when the glacier melt hasn't quite maxed out and maybe you'll make it.

There were road washouts from Masadala all the way back through to Islamabad. I was lucky to manage it all in four days of walking and swimming and three plus days of driving.

Even though I'm home now, I can't resist commenting on the crowds at ABC. Just as Shawn expressed in his last dispatch, I too was concerned with another group coming in to climb K2's North Ridge. Shawn describes them coming into ABC without a tent and without ropes or gear to climb the mountain just assuming they could use what we had fixed.

I felt the same anxiety when I met these two Germans on my walk out. Their first question to me was how far my team had pushed the fixed ropes and that they were following our progress on the Internet. They assumed that jugging up our lines would be just fine. After all, when they had tried the climb it before in 1995, they jugged up other people's ropes.

For me, I simply can't fathom the opportunistic mentality of these other teams. What if our American team had decided to cancel our expedition at the last moment? Simple logic, esprit de corps, or common decency dictates (in my mind anyway) that if you are going to climb one of the remotest climbs on one of the biggest mountains in the world you would: 1) bring your own equipment, 2) call and confirm that collaboration with the other team is possible, 3) pick another route (there are other lines on the north side of K2) or just bring the gear yourself.

Maybe our team (first there with the first issued permit) has the RIGHT to climb the mountain in the style we wanted to, i.e. independently. It's a shame that there are climbers out there intentionally planning to start a route after all the work of fixing and preparing a route is done by someone else only to save money on gear and logistics and make the climbing easier.

It might not be as big a deal on less technical mountains that don't require 5000 meters of fixed rope to climb, but I think it's a crime that the Chinese Mountaineering Association (CMA), Xinjiang Mountaineering Association (XMA), and Karakoram Mountaineering Association (KMA) allow the overbooking of a technical route with tiny camps like the north ridge of K2. More than 30 climbers on one route at one time; get real.

Despite the weather, despite the crowds, I hope as many of our team as possible get a summit bid.

— Fred Ziel, MountainZone.com Correspondent

Email this story to a friend