Posted: Jul 16, 2008 11:32 am EDT
(K2Climb.net) Sad news from Nanga Parbat, where Italian Karl Unterkircher reportedly died in a crevasse fall on the Rakhiot face yesterday. Unterkircher was opening a new route together with Walter Nones and Simon Kehrer; themselves in a tough spot right now.

In other news, Spaniards and Portuguese Joao Garcia are pushing for Broad Peak’s summit, huge avalanches are sweeping K2’s Cesen route, and teams come and go on the Spires: the American-Canadian expedition called it quits on Distaghil Sar, while Simone Moro is back for another round vs. Batura II.

Nanga Parbat: Unterkircher perished in crevasse fall

Details are still sketchy, but Montagna.org. reports that Unterkircher was breaking trail slightly above 6000m, when a snow ledge collapsed below him and he fell into a crevasse. Walter and Simon reportedly spent the entire night trying to save their buddy, all their efforts in vain. Earlier today, Walter managed to report the news to Karl's wife in a brief conversation over the sat-phone.

“We can’t climb back – it’s too dangerous,” Nones said. “We are OK, already at 6,400m and out of the serac area. Now we must proceed further up to 7000 meters, in order to exit the face. Then we will go down the fastest and safest route.”

Unterkircher, Nones and Kehrer were opening a new route on Nanga’s Rakhiot face. As a preparatory climb, the three climbers had opened a new route up the west ridge of Chongra Peak (6.824m), in alpine style. After a tough bivouac on the ridge, the team topped out on July 3rd, completing Chongra’s second ascent.

As for other teams on Nanga, Shared Summits checked in yesterday from Kinshoffer route's C1, on the mountain's Diamir side.

K2: High winds, low spirits, huge avalanches

“The weather was worse than expected, we could only reach 6,700m, instead of the 7,500 we had hoped for in order to acclimatize” Christian reported on Monday.

The French team, whose goal is a new route on K2’s west face, also wanted to clarify a misunderstanding concerning their previous acclimatization trip on Broad Peak. “We have indeed acclimatized on the slopes of Broad Peak but not above 6,500 meters,“ they stated on Nick Rice’s website.

The Norit climbers are having a hard time on K2 as well.

“Morale hit a new low for the team a few days ago when what appeared to be a possible weather window on the 18th vanished with the changing influences of the jet stream” Gerard reported. “High winds. No go. So we're still waiting on the weather.”

“We’re back to business and meetings with other teams that are ready for a summit attempt,” the Irish climber added. “Co-operation is looking good: Koreans, Serbians, Italians and ourselves all seem to be on the same page.”

Speaking of which, Marco Confortola counted that about 25 climbers, 6 Sherpas from Nepal and 4 Pakistani HA porters will be working together on the Abruzzi Spur route. “We are united and strong,” Marco wrote. “Now we just need some good weather.”

“Today, we decided that we would indeed climb to Camp II, but thanks to my aversion to early starts, we would wait to begin until 6:00am rather than the usual 5:00am departure,” Nick Rice wrote yesterday.

“As we were preparing to leave, we heard a loud noise, and looked out of our tents to witness a huge avalanche pouring down the Cesen route blasting the base of the route, crossing the valley between Broad Peak and K2, and actually going up Broad Peak’s lower slopes. If we had been climbing on the route (which we would have had we left at 5:00am) we would have surely suffered serious injuries if not worse. We finally decided to postpone our climb till tomorrow and allow the newly fallen snow to settle on the route. This turned out to also be a wise decision as the route avalanched again around 7:00am.”

“Hopefully, we will climb up to C3 in order to repair our tent and spend a night there – and then will return to BC until a weather window opens up,” Nick’s team mate Hugues reported.

Rob and Ed, members in the Singaporean expedition, set off for Camp 1 on Monday, together with Sherpas Kami and Jamling, and returned to BC later that day. “It was hard going and the weather didn't help, with light snow,” their home team reported.

Broad Peak

News is expected from Valeri Babanov, who latest reported from 7,000m, on a new route he is opening on Broad peak, together with mate Viktor.

The Spanish team has launched a summit push, heading all the way to C3. Divided into two groups, Aitor Hayas, Diego and Miguel, hope to top out on Thursday. Alberto Ceraín, Lina Quesada and Martin will follow on Friday.

“I’m suddenly alone after this mountain has been 'invaded' by inexperienced, unpredictable climbers,” vented Joao García, whose mate Mogens Jensen was hit by a rock, apparently set loose by another team from a higher camp. “Therefore, I am joining the Spaniards and Italians on their summit push.” (ed: Aitor, Diego and Miguel.)

Serge Civera’s team set up C2 yesterday.

GII: summit pushes aborted – but not over for all

Field Touring alpine team aborted their summit push on Monday’s night. “I had to make the really tough decision to call off pretty much our only summit chance last night at 10:30 pm. 10 cm of snow had fallen and the winds had started to blow,” leader Chris reported. “Everyone supported my decision to see what the morning would bring. Well, it brought 50 cm of snow, a total whiteout and blow-you-over winds.”

The team was expected back in BC yesterday, except for French members Jean-Rene and Francois. “They feel differently about the weather and route conditions and along with Asgar, may make another attempt from camp 2. Nacho remained at camp 3 and may also descend tomorrow (yesterday) or head up to camp 4, weather permitting.”

“The North Face team turned back at 7400m - their bid to ski from the summit of Gasherbrum 2 is pretty much off,” Chris added.

Distaghil Sar: It’s over

On July 4th, Bruce and Don finally reached the summit of P.6150, the key to accessing the basin and continuing the approach to the North Ridge of Distaghil Sar. On the summit, the pair set up camp and recorded elevation via GPS as 6247 meters (20,495ft).

However, the team was unable to reach the main summit. On a reconnaissance trip up on July 5th, Bruce and Don estimated conditions were too dangerous on both the north face of Distaghil Sar (E and W peaks) and on the neighboring snow peak of Yazghil Dome. All team members are back in Shimshal.

Batura II: Simone Moro is back!

“We arrived 2 days ago in Batura’s BC at 4107 meters,” Simone Moro reported last weekend. “I’m with Herve Barmasse and our dream is to reach the unclimbed summit of Batura II (7762 m). Also in BC are two young brothers: Martin and Florian Riegler. This is their first expedition and I suggested them a nice mountain named Darwo Chook (5800 m) that I saw 3 years ago," Simone reported.

”On July 13th we did our first acclimatization climb, to the summit of Ya Chhish (5130m).”

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 updates
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

Shared Summits
Iranian Challengers
Karl Unterkircher

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

Simone Moro

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