Posted: Jul 11, 2008 12:27 pm EDT
(K2Climb.net) Letter from Hirotaka; more details on the Slovak/Polish Gasherbrum traverse; summit push on G2 and an update from K2 - here goes a pretty massive week's end wrap-up from Pakistan.

Hirotaka

On July 18, 2007 members of Amical's expedition were hit by an avalanche on GII. The accident took place above C2 at around 6,700m, and struck four climbers. Team leader Dirk Groeger managed to reach the surface by his own power. Members from other expeditions immediately set off from C2 and hurried up to help Amical's climbers, rescuing two. Hirotaka survived; while one climber died of his injuries and another was never recovered.

"I can walk without a cane now," Hiro said in his email to ExplorersWeb early this spring, a thank-you letter to the climbers that saved his life. One of Hiro's vertebrae (No.3 lumbar spine) and five ribs were broken, and one of his lungs was collapsed.

"According to my doctors, my physical condition was very dangerous, especially, the back bone injury. I could have been paraplegic if the injury got worse from transportation process. Your appropriate response and self-sacrificing efforts saved my life, my body which is a container of my life and my future," Hiro wrote.

Hiro said he would come back to the mountains, and two days back - astonishingly enough - he summited the mountain that nearly took his life. Today, an email from the champ arrived:

"Dear Exploresweb, I came back to Himalya. Veikka (Finnish), Kazuya (Japan) and I reached the summit of G2 on the 8th of July.
Veikka reached 12th summit of over 8000m peaks, for me it is 10th summit of over 8000m peaks."

"This time climbing was quite an adventure for me, because my backbone is still reinforced by a titanium shaft that I broke in last years accident when many people saved my life."

"Everyone who saved my life and members of the last year’s team led me to the summit of G2, I really appreciate it."

"When I reached the summit there was no joy or a word, I just stood in silence to recall the memory of every one who help me and the member who died last year. Continuing climbing is the only way to express my gratitude to them. I would like to say thank you to everyone."

"Hirotaka Takeuchi"

Born in Tokyo in 1971, Hirotaka Takeuchi summited Everest and K2 back to back in 1996 at the age of 25. At the time, he became the youngest person to have summited the two tallest peaks on Earth. He next went on to summit Makalu, Nanga Parbat, Annapurna, GI, Shisha Pangma (first traverse), Kangchenjunga, and Manaslu. With G2 his tenth 8,000er, Hiro Takeuchi has now stepped up to the top of the Japanese rankings of 8,000ers (living) summiteers.

G1/G2 traverse

Running out of time, Maria Hamorova report the "dos Pedros" are now packing up in BC and leaving for home.

What you get by setting up big goals is as important as what you become by achieving them. The Himalayan Trilogy dream team (Piotr Pustelnik, Piotr Morawski and Peter Hamor) set up a grand plan to span over the next two years: the north-west face of Annapurna; a long G1/G2/G3 traverse; all Broad Peaks; a new route on the east face of Everest; the north face of Manaslu and...the north-west ridge of Rakaposhi.

The current status: Ama Dablam; check. Annapurna; close but no cigar. G1-2-3; G1&G2 bagged in a long, very hard Gasherbrum traverse (not the same as a double header) by Piotr Morawski and Peter Hamor - only the second ever of two 8000ers, after Reinhold Messner and Hans Kammerlander; a very difficult conquest that remained unrepeated for 24 years.

The Italians started on G2 and it took them 4 days from G2 top to the summit of G1 (and 7 days of total climbing). The Polish/Slovak combo started on G1 and it took them 11 days from G1 top to the summit of G2 (and 20 days climbing), Rodrigo Granzotto Peron reported yesterday.

"Didn't Jean-Christophe Lafaille do a traverse on GI - GII in 1996?" a reader asked today. Rodrigo replied, "Jean-Christophe Lafaille did a double-header, and a good one (solo, just 4 days between the two summits, and opening a partially new route on GI). There are 35 cases of climbers who did the same. Double-headers on GI and GII are pretty common, especially nowadays."

"But to do a 'traverse' the climber must face 'the entire ridge' between the two peaks traversed. J-C summited GI then came back to the BC of GI and then used another route to summit GII."

"He did not traverse the ridge between GI and GII. The only two parties that did this traverse are Kammerlander+Messner and now Hamor+Morawski. I advise that even Hamor+Morawski will be investigated when the expedition is over, to see if they really did a traverse or a double-header. Until now everything conspires favorable to a traverse," Rodrigo ends.

Finally Maros Liptak, a friend of Peter Hamor, points out correctly from Bratislava today that only Piotr Morawski is from Poland; Peter Hamor is from Slovakia so the traverse is in fact "..a great achievement for Poland AND Slovakia!"

Don't forget to also check out ExWeb's interview with Piotr Pustelnik today.

G2 summit push

On G2, a summit controversy has unfolded - ExWeb has emailed Amical and Kobler outfitters for their comments. Meanwhile , climbers are on summit push including Field Touring Alpine:

"Great news from C2 from Chris. Appears everything is on schedule and we’ll keep honoring the weather gods and hope they permit a summit attempt in the next few days!" reports Stu.

The team's climbing leader Chris writes from Gasherbrum 2 camp 2, 6500m: "The team is all set to move up to just under 7000m in the morning. Everyone is feeling fine, considering, and we plan to leave at about 5am. The majority of the route up to camp 3 is fixed and we expect good snow conditions and fine travel up the 30-50° slopes. We will see how everyone is feeling at camp 3 and if everything is good to go, we will move up to camp 4 at 7400m and get ready for our summit attempt. Nacho is here at camp 2 and he is also planning on moving up to 3 in the morning. I will try my best to write tomorrow from camp 3."

Check further updates on the expedition website.

Also Alex Gavan and other climbers are getting ready for pushes this weekend.

K2 - The Rope Vaccuum

Battling low power, Gerard McDonnell has now posted a long dispatch from K2, detailing the latest summit push. Lines are fixed to 200m or so bellow the shoulder, "We've cached 400m of 5mm spectra bottleneck rope at top anchor along with camp 4 provisions (2 tents, gas etc)."

And there are details about the gas accident: "Rueland started cooking with an MSR reactor hanging inside a somewhat ventilated tent. Court first noticed Rueland with greatly impaired co-ordination when trying to pour water from the first boil into a bottle and was instead spilling it directly on the tent floor. Just as soon as Court took over the job Rueland passed out. Immediately suspecting carbon monoxide Court opened both vestibules, turned off the stove and shouted to Sheeny in the neighboring tent for help. All they could do was hope Rueland would respond to the fresh air. And thankfully after 5min or so he came around albeit weak and groggy for a couple of hours afterward."

"Court had been laying lower and closer to the ventilation and talking to Rueland as he was melting water. Rueland had been sitting up close to the hanging stove. One of the vestibules was open but there obviously wasn't a sufficient cross-flow. The MSR Reactor is an extremely efficient stove and commands much respect when cooking inside a tent. Lesson learned."

And about the rope situation:

"We received many a good piece of advice on the route. But when it came to recommended amounts of fixed line we were more than once advised to take much less than required."

The climbers are now hoping for another weather window soon. "There's been rumours that the weather is thinking about dealing us a break around the 18th (full moon). We'll see. Fingers crossed." Go to Gerard's website for the full report.

Links to teams in Pakistan:

K2

French K2 west face expedition

Wilco van Rooijen's Norit K2 expedition
Gerard McDonnell's dispatches
Marco Confortola's updates
Singapore expedition
Cecilie Skog's website
Nick Rice's dispatches
Baltoro Express expedition's website
Dodo Kopold's website
Mike Farris expedition's website
Hugues d'Aubarede

GI, GII, G3 & Broad Peak

Peter Hamor's website
Piotr Morawski's website
Pustelnik's Himalayan weblog

Broad Peak, GI & GII

Valeri Babanov

Broad Peak

Badia & Mauricio's website
Joao Garcia's blog
Serge Civera's updates
Alberto Zerain, Aitor Hayas and Juan Carlos Gonzalez's team blog
Lina Quesada's blog
Rafael Merchán's updates
Panzeri & Nardi's Mountain Freedom

Nanga Parbat

Iranian Challengers

GI & GII

Alex Gavan's website
Roby Piantoni's updates
Marco Astori
Fernando González Rubio

GII

Hirotaka's blog
Field Touring's updates
Amical Alpin
Kari Kobler's team
Daniela Teixeira's dispatches

Karakorum's lower peaks & spires

Don Bowie

 EMAIL   PRINT   SHARE   TEXT