Posted: Oct 02, 2007 10:07 pm EDT
(K2Climb.net) An SMS just arrived (5.30 a.m. Moscow time) to RussianClimb from Denis Urubko, reading: "SUMMIT!!! We're in C4, beginning the descent. We reached the top yesterday."

This is the first north side summit in 11 years, and the latest K2 summit ever. Denis now has 12 8000ers with only Makalu and Cho Oyu to go. Serguey Samoilov bagged his 5th 8000er summit.

Following a long period of a heavy snow storm, the latest forecast predicted 20 ms (50 mph) winds and continous snowfall through Friday. The amazing climb must have been anything but easy.

The last time the North ridge was summited was in 1996, (Aug 14) by a stellar team of Piotr Pustelnik and Ryszard Pawlowski (led by Krzysztof Wielicki who summited together with Christian Kuntner and Marco Bianci 4 days earlier), and Carlos Buhler, Igor Benkin (died on descent), and Sergei Penzov - led by Ivan Dusharin. None of the climbers, including now Denis and Serguey, used oxygen.

Before Denis and Serguey, the latest K2 summit was made in 1978 by an American expedition who summited K2 on September 6 and 7 via a NE ridge/Abruzzi route.

With this, 281 people have now summited K2, but only 32 from the north side.

Climb recap

Friday morning Moscow time, the two climbers reported that a snow blizzard had hit the mountain that night. There was low visibility and avalanches fell down the North Face. "We have to wait for 1-2 days, seems we're chronically unsuccessful in this expedition..." they wrote.

4 hours later, a desperate call, "Is the weather supposed to improve in the upcoming days? The conditions are so bad here - it's horrible..."

And 2 hours later again, "the weather's bad, avalanches on K2 North Face, too dangerous. We'll wait here for 2 days, and then try to cross to the normal route (NW ridge, Japanese) as we wouldn't be able to reach our route from BC in such deep snow."

Saturday, a new SMS from Denis read, "We have scrubbed our original plan; we can't reach K2's North Ridge due to avalanche danger. We have to climb the normal route. The weather's very bad. We reached Camp 2."

Sunday, another SMS from Denis said that in spite of the horrible conditions, the two climbers had reached camp 3. "The weather is clear, but windy and cold," they reported. "We feel fine."

Monday, two messages from the men revealed they had reached camp 4, with the weather turning ugly again. "The weather is very bad, there's no visibility," the climbers typed on their sat phone to Lena at RussianClimb, "If the weather gives us a chance, we'll go up tomorrow."

Denis Urubko is considered one of the world's top climbers. He has summited ten 8000ers and many other major peaks in the Himalayas and Central Asia. He has also sacrificed summits to help fellow climbers in trouble, some of whom he had never met before.

Member of the Kazakh national team, Denis Urubko took a step up three years ago, in switching from large expeditions to 8000 climbs in alpine-style. He teamed up with Serguey Samoilov, by then new to Himalaya.

On May 8, 2006, Denis and Serguey completed a new, Alpine-style route on the northeast side of Manaslu (8163m). A few days earlier, they’d reached the top via the normal route, achieving the first summit on Manaslu in three years. In 2005, Denis and Serguey were also nominated for the international Piolet d’Or after a new route they opened on sight, alpine-style and in very bad conditions on the previously unclimbed southwestern face of Broad Peak. They were the only climbers to reach the summit of BP that year.

A great technical climber (Khan Tengri NF with Denis in 2000), Serguey, 50, was new to 8000+ altitude when he joined Denis for the climb on Broad Peak. The expedition was a success, as apparently was their team, since the two of them teamed up again on Manaslu last year, and were attempting a new route on K2's north face together this year.

 EMAIL   PRINT   SHARE   TEXT