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Welcome to The Mountain Company's Autumn 2007 Newsletter!
It has been a busy summer for The Mountain Company with three treks to K2 base camp in northern Pakistan. Roland led two of these and Phil Coates led the third one. As ever, in spite of the general media portrayal of Pakistan, we had no problems travelling in the country and the people from Baltistan (K2 region) were as friendly as ever.
Roland is planning to return to Pakistan next summer to lead the Biafo and HisparSnowLake traverse in July and then the K2 base camp trek in August. Please get in touch if you would like to find out more about these treks.
Roland will be in the UK until the last week of September so please call any time to chat about a trip to the Himalayas or Kilimanjaro.
We look forward to hearing from you!
The Mountain Company team |
| World record for highest concert in the world! |
In October, The Mountain Company is looking forward to organising an Everest base camp trek for the Love Hope Strength Foundation in aid of The Nepal Cancer Relief Society.
Mike Peters from The Alarm and James Chippendale from will lead forty musicians, cancer survivors and mountaineers to Everest Base Camp. They will also perform an acoustic concert to help the BhaktapurCancerHospital build the infrastructure of its clinic.
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| IMEC Responsible Travel Partner |
| The Mountain Company is delighted to announce that we have recently been selected to become a Partner for Responsible Travel with International Mountain Explorers Connection (IMEC).
IMEC was set up to promote responsible and sustainable connections between travellers and the people of developing mountain regions of the world. They provide and coordinate education, assistance, and cross-cultural experiences for members, volunteers, trekkers, and local communities.
For more information take a look at their website at http://www.hec.org/ |
| Western led treks for 2008 |
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| Mountaineering news from Karakorum |
K2
The Russian K2 West Face expedition climbed the first new route on K2 in 10 years. This now leaves just two unclimbed faces on K2 on the East and North side of the mountain. The West Face is a very technical route done by the same Russian team that climbed the North face of Everest and Jannu.
The Russians arrived to base camp in early June to start fixing the route. They worked on the route regardless of weather, technical difficulties and spent many nights in the death zone (resulting in two members being evacuated due to altitude thrombosis). At 1pm on August 21 Andrew Mariev and Vadim Popovich stepped on to the summit of K2 and onthe next day a further nine climbers also reached the summit!
The Mountain Company August K2 base camp group met most of the Russian West Face team when we were kindly invited on for a cup of tea at their base camp. For more information on the Russian West Face expedition take a look at their website http://www.k2-8611.ru/en
A team from the Central Kazakh Army Sport Club (CSKA) is currently attempting K2's NW ridge, on the mountain's Chinese side. On August 31 two of the strongest climbers, Maxut Zhumayev and Vassily Pivtsov (each summitted eleven 8000ers) climbed 200m above their 8300m high camp. There is only a 100m steep section separating them from the summit of K2 (8611 m).
On July 20 there were sixteen confirmed summits on the Abruzzi (SE) Spur and one further summit by Libor Uher (Czech) on the SSE Spur or Cesen route. Two climbers were lost during these summits: Italian Stefano Zavka and Nepalese Nima Nurbu on the Korean expedition.
Broad Peak
There were many expeditions on Broad Peak including a 50th anniversary team of 35 people from the Austrian Alpine Club led by Gerfried Goeschl. Gerfried himself summitted Broad Peak on July 20 together with five other climbers. On July 31 Günther Unterberger and Louis Rousseau also reached the summit of Broad Peak.
All three of The Mountain Company K2 treks stopped off at the Austrian's base camp at BroadPeak for lunch on the way back from K2 base camp (as their expedition was organized by the same local operator). It was very interesting to meet several members of their team and hear more about their climb.
There were numerous other summits of BroadPeak including Silvio Mondinelli who has now completed his climb of all fourteen 8000m peaks. He is the thirteenth climber to complete this quest and sixth to do so without supplementary oxygen.
Austrian Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner also made the summit of BroadPeak which brings her tally to ten 8000m peaks (highest number for any woman). Spanish Edurne Pasaban summitted BroadPeak a few days later so claiming her ninth 8000er.
GI Australian Mick Parker and four Hungarians summitted GI on July 29 and Jean Troillet's team followed the next day. Mick was a member of Roland's BroadPeak expedition in 2004.
After summitting GI, the Hungarian team of Zsolt Eross and three female climbers Hilda Sterczer, Katalin Csollány and Anita Ugyan went to BroadPeak where all four made it to the summit to complete the double header.
G2
Italians Karl Unterkircher, Daniele Bernasconi, and Michele Compagnoni completed the first traverse of G2 by climbing the north spur from China and descending the south side in Pakistan.
On July 18 an avalanche released above Camp 2 and hitting four climbers from the German Amical expedition. Other expeditions on the mountain hurried up to help Amical's climbers and rescued two of them. Unfortunately one climber died from his injuries whereas Japanese Hirotaka survived and was later evacuated by helicopter.
On August 12 Jean Troillet, Mike Horn, Fred Roux and Olivier Roduit made the first summit of G2 from the south side. Bad weather and a dangerous snow conditions put off all other expeditions.
Nanga ParbatChileans Luis Álvarez, Ernesto Olivares, Andrés Jonquera, Pablo Gutierrez and Cristian García-Huidobro; Polish female climber Kinga Baranowska and her Spanish mate Roberto Rojo; and Slovak climbers Martin Gablik and Anton Suchy all summitted Nanga Parbat on July 18. |
