| Report Type | Full |
| Peak(s) |
Gasherbrum 2 (26,309') |
| Date Posted | 08/27/2019 |
| Date Climbed | 07/17/2019 |
| Author | mattr9 |
| Additional Members | mgorb |
| Gasherbrum 2: Success and Shortcomings in the Death Zone (Report 2 of 2) |
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Gasherbrum 2 (26,309') Expedition Report 2 of 2: July 4th - 8th: Acclimatization Rotation 2 July 4th: This time to head up to camp 1, we woke up and were ready much quicker, so by 2:00am we were heading up the glacier towards the icefall. Compared to the first time we went up, we were cruising! We reached the top of the icefall in 3 hours again where I donned my skins. Skinning was fast for the most part, but on a few steep parts I had to take them off and carry them in my hands, but in my head it was worth it because there is probably only a few handful of people who have ever skinned on this terrain before! We made very good progress and we rolled into camp 1 just 5 hours and 15 minutes after departing base camp, over a 5 hour improvement from last time! Once we got to camp 1, it didn't look like the route up to camp 2 had fully been opened, so I went over to another climber to ask about the route. The other climber was none other than Don Bowie, a Canadian climber who is well known and has done some amazing things in the Karakoram. He has been close to summiting Gasherbrum 4, which I believe only has 3-4 parties to ever summit. He is a pretty big deal! He was on Gasherbrum 2 climbing with a Finnish model / icon, Lotta Hintsa. I would end up becoming quite familiar with these two as the expedition progressed. Anyways, Don said that the route to camp 2 hadn't been opened all the way, and that he had boot packed a different section lower on the banana ridge than what we had done on our previous rotation.
July 5th: We were moving by 7:00am and within an hour and a half, we reached our cache at ~20,300'. We dug it out and divided the gear, our packs were quite heavy with camp 2 and camp 3 gear and supplies! Don Bowie climbed up to us and deposited a small tent near our cache location and then descended back down to camp 1 as we were reorganizing the cache supplies. We continued up, joining the 4-5 climbers above. Of the 4-5 climbers, 1 of them was a Sherpa by the name of Sanu, and the others were Pakistani high altitude porters and one climber, of whom I'm not sure of his nationality. Sanu was doing all of the hard work, probably because he is a Sherpa and so people just expect to wait behind him as he does all the work of breaking trail. He was also fixing ropes. Not wanting to intrude on him, we waited patiently as he would climb a section and fix the fixed rope, then yell down to us and we would follow. The going was very slow as we slowly climbed the remainder of the banana ridge. If it was my choice, I would have no fixed ropes, I think just like oxygen and Sherpa, they are a crutch that allow people who lack the proper skills entry to such places as the Karakoram. One example is Atanas from our base camp, he was not capable of climbing solo without fixed ropes, and his dependance on the fixed ropes was so big that he did not even bring an ice axe up with him... #FacePalm. But on the other hand, if there are emergencies higher up on the mountain, they offer a safe and efficient way to descend!
After 7 hours, we finally descended the rappel down onto the small flat spot that would serve as our camp 2. We set up camp and had the rest of the afternoon to stare up at the slope between camps 2 and 3. I loosely agreed to assist Sanu with breaking trail and fixing ropes up to camp 3, but made sure to say I was going to sleep in. I'm not one to just sit around for a full day and let others have all the fun!
July 6th: Man of my loosely-agreed-upon word, I got ready to help Sanu break trail and fix ropes up towards camp 3 after sleeping in. It was 9:00am before we got moving and both Matt G and I were carrying rolls of fixed rope on top of our camp 3 gear and supplies (Matt G actually had a large roll of fixed rope, twice as big as mine, poor guy probably had a really heavy pack haha). We got going and from the start I was out in front breaking trail. Maybe a hundred feet up from camp 2, we came to a steep wall leading to a more or less flat area. I really wanted to lead up this so I asked Sanu for his ice tool and gave him my whippet so that I could climb up with 2 tools. There was over a foot of snow on top of rotten ice, so I would have to clear away the snow and then attempt to get a good stick with an ice tool before moving up. It was slow work but I was happy to carve this trench into the mountain, knowing others would be using this path. I topped out and continued breaking trail up higher and higher.
When we got up a bit higher, another Sherpa had caught up with us, Norbu. He told me to take a rest and then Sanu began running the fixed rope out up the slope. Matt G caught up and told me that he had forgotten snacks, and so he was going to turn around and go back to camp 2. I grabbed his portion of the camp 3 cache, dropped my portion of fixed rope, and continued up with Sanu and Norbu. We continued up until a large crevasse running horizontally across almost the entire slope at ~22,100'. I decided that the crevasse was a good stopping point for me for the day and a good location for the cache to be emplaced. I buried the cache and told Sanu and Norbu that I was heading back down, Sanu said thank you and called me "The American Boss" before I descended back down.
Less than an hour and I was back in camp 2, where I saw Sean and Ben. They had gotten to camp 2 just after we had started up and had seen me leading up the wall. We decided that tomorrow morning all 4 of us would head up to camp 3 and spend the day and night up there for acclimatization before heading down to base camp. They wanted to wake up at 3:00am and get moving by 4:00am, but I thought that was a bit early so decided to wake up at 4:00am and get moving by 5:00am. July 7th: We had clear skies overnight, so it was very cold when we got moving at 5:00am. We could see Sean and Ben up above, Sean was a ways ahead of Ben. Matt and I started off with light packs since I had carried the camp 3 gear up the previous day. Because of the quite chilly temperatures, I had to keep one hand in my pocket to stay warm and then switch every few minutes, I was regretting not having brought up some of my summit clothing. Also, because I was wearing ski boots, they were much more susceptible to getting cold, and I had stupidly cached my overboots up with the camp 3 stuff.... Did I mention I like learning lessons the hard way? By the time I got up to the cache, I had caught up with Ben who was moving slow and steady. I dug out the cache, grabbed my portion, and donned my overboots just as the sun started to peak around Gasherbrum 2 and warm us. Matt caught up to me soon and grabbed his portion before I continued upwards. At one point I had to stop and take my feet out of my boots in order to warm them up a little bit, I wasn't worried about frostbite but they were definitely getting numb and uncomfortable. I was the last to top out the last little rollover before camp 3. As I approached, I would see Sean poke his head over the rollover so I knew we were close. Sean had broken trail up the remaining couple hundred feet after where Sanu and Norbu had stopped, the guy is a machine! He would again prove his strength on the summit push, absolute beast! Upon arriving into camp 3 we went through the monotonous task of setting up camp and then we settled in for the day/night. We all felt very good considering we were up at ~23,000' for the first time, but my lord it was boring just waiting around. That is something that I don't do well with, sitting still, because I can't seem to fall asleep unless its night time. Matt G had an amazing ability to sleep at any time of the day, and I envied him on this day for sure! Regardless of my inability to sleep/sit still, I survived the boring ordeal and eventually passed out later in the night, but I got some beautiful views of the surrounding Gasherbrum peaks, Masherbrum, and Chogolisa. Absolutely stunning!
July 8th: Ben and Sean departed camp 3 at 4:00am again, so when we awoke an hour later, they had already departed. We made quick time back down to camp 2, where we paused for a few minutes before making quick time down to camp 1. On the way down to camp 1, we used the fixed ropes and I had no ethical dilemma using them since I had helped Sanu and Norbu up above. While changing my ATC over to another section of rope, I was a little too careless and dropped my ATC... I watched it fall all the way down and cursed my clumsiness. I would now have to munter hitch all the way down the ropes and be "that guy" that twists the S**T out of the rope... When we arrived to camp 1, I expected to see Sean and Ben, but they were not there. I realized that they must have gotten to camp 1 early enough to then descend the icefall without risking the snow / ice heating up too much, definitely was the better move! They would now get an extra day down at base camp to recover. Matt G and I cursed our silliness and settled in for another boring day of relaxing at 19,400'. I took the opportunity to get some pictures with Gasherbrum 2 in the background with my Big Dogs Huge Paws banner, my Live Your Dream banner, and a Mountain Chalet banner. My mother volunteers for the Big Dogs Huge Paws dog rescue and I have brought their banner up Denali, Manaslu, and now Gasherbrum 2 (I actually didn't have a banner on Denali, so I drew one on the back of my map haha). I was awarded a grant from the American Alpine Club via the North Face "Live Your Dream" grant, and one of the requirements was to get a picture with their banner on the trip that they helped support. And finally, Mountain Chalet is a Colorado Springs mountaineering shop that is home to some of the coolest cats in the Springs area, and they supported Matt G and I by sponsoring us with a few items of gear, Thanks Shane! By 8:00pm we roped up and headed down. We postholed a little bit, but we remained optimistic that we wouldn't have a repeat of last time through the icefall... Boy were we wrong. Once we got to the plateau before the icefall really starts, we noticed that the glacier was beginning to change, A LOT! Matt G fell into a crevasse up to his chest on the plateau and then there were many big crevasses we had once been able to walk over, but now had to jump. needless to say, it took us quite some time to make it down to the flatter portion of glacier that leads to base camp, and we unfortunately did not avoid the post hole nightmare. We unroped below the major crevasse danger areas and slogged our way home, arriving at midnight, another 4 hour slog down from camp 1, yipee!... I decided in my head that my worst memories of this expedition would be of descending from camp 1 haha
July 9th - 11th: Base Camp Recovery July 9th: This 3 day base camp recovery period was spent relaxing, and getting amped for our summit push. We had slept at ~23,000' / 7,000m and felt confident in doing a summit push from Camp 4 (~24,400' / 7400m). I prepared my summit gear (parka, down bibs, mittens) and planned out how much food and fuel I would need. We planned to bring up enough food and fuel for a subsequent summit push on Gasherbrum 1 if we were feeling decent after Gasherbrum 2. We planned to possibly spend 10 days above base camp, 4 days to summit Gasherbrum 2, 2 days to rest at camp 1, then 4 days to summit Gasherbrum 1. During this period we also celebrated Ben's birthday, and the kitchen staff made him a cake, pretty cool experience! The atmosphere at base camp was very jovial and everyone was psyched for the summit push. I also found out on the night of the 10th that the "Climbing For Casualties" fundraiser I had started for the Special Forces Foundation had just reached its second fundraising goal and we had surpasses $25,000! I was super pumped and got little sleep that night! We had been selling shirts that we had designed and asking for donation, we had made about $7,500 on the shirts alone! As I reached camps, Jen Nelson, my old landlord and now good friend, was posting updates on our "Climbing For Casualties" Instagram / Facebook pages asking people to immediately donate $1 for reaching camp 1, $2 for camp 2 etc. I had also landed a stellar $2,000 donation from Larry H. Miller Toyota in Colorado Springs (Shout out to Bill Stahelin!). The reason I started this fundraiser was because one of the guys I was deployed with to Afghanistan previously, Justin Lascek, lost both of his legs to an IED on the current deployment. When I heard the news, I couldn't believe it, and eventually thought to do a fundraiser through my climb to help him, so I teamed up with the Special Forces Foundation, who helps Special Forces Soldiers that are in need of care, whether its from PTSD, wounds sustained in combat, or helping the families of deceased Soldiers. I was very excited to raise money for a good cause, and I was SO STOKED to hit $20,000 a few weeks before I left, so hitting $25,000 was INSANE! The last day before we would depart for the summit push was pretty low key, but I had come up with some new verses to my gasherbrum rap, so I unveiled them to the group haha Not as big of a reaction as the first verses, but still was fun and set a fun mood in base camp. Gotta have fun! July 12th - 18th: Summit Push July 12th: The 4 of us (myself, Matt G, Ben, and Sean) all awoke at 1:00am, but none of us got much sleep since we were so excited. We planned to move up to camp 1, and depending on how we felt, move straight to camp 2. From there we planned to go up to camp 3, then move camp the next day to camp 4, where we would eat, drink, and relax for a few hours prior to departing for the summit in the night. When we arrived to camp 1 in 5 hours, Matt G and Ben were feeling the effects of sleep deprivation pretty hard and so we opted to stay more conservative and stay at camp 1 for the day and move to camp 2 tomorrow. I was glad to be more conservative, knowing we would be more fresh when we got higher with this new approach. Matt G fell asleep promptly and got a solid amount of sleep in while I was able to get a solid 4-5 hour nap. Pretty relaxed day, or at least relaxed for being at 19,400'!
July 13th: Ben and Sean departed at 4:00am while Matt G and I left at 5:00am. We made good time and arrived to camp 2 in 4 hours, left with the entire day to relax, rehydrate, and refuel. Don Bowie and Lotta Hintsa were also up at camp 2 along with a Romanian climber, Alex Gavan, who shared base camp with Don and Lotta and had joined up with them. We talked and joked with them through most of the day, nice fun atmosphere for sure! We also heard on the radio that there was a Pakistani porter that had collapsed on the route between Gasherbrum 1's camp 2 and camp 1. Our liaison officer, Tahir, ended up coordinating a rescue helicopter from the Pakistani military to perform a medevac. This would be the first of 4 rescues performed this season on the Gasherbrums. The porter had High Altitude Cerebral Edema (HACE) and survived, to my knowledge. July 14th: Again, Ben and Sean departed at 4:00am and Matt G and I departed an hour later. Ben and Sean were a ways up the slope and Don, Lotta, and Alex were a few hundred feet above us. We soon gained the 3 and passed. There was a little bit of new snow on the slopes, and from the looks of it Sean was moving slow, which was very unlike him. Since we had left an hour later again, he had to do all of the trail breaking, and even though there was already a boot pack put in, the additional snow was taking its toll on him. We agreed later on to all leave at the same time to rotate trail breaking duties. Upon arrival to camp 3, I was dismayed to see that there was trash all over the immediate area. There was 1 new tent there that belongs to the Polish climbers, but I can't be sure of the origins of the trash. It was really frustrating to see, because you never want to see trash thrown out in nature, but obviously some people's ethics in the mountains are a little different than mine. It adds maybe 1 extra pound to your pack to take your trash down, and you are going down hill anyways. I chalk it up to pure laziness and a lack of respect for the mountain, but maybe other countries and cultures have different views, so who am I to judge... Yet I will still judge haha About an hour after we got up to camp 3, Don, Lotta, and Alex arrived. Alex jumped into the Polish climbers' tent (not sure if that was coordinated or not, whatever) and Don and Lotta set their tent up slightly higher than ours. We decided to wake up at 3:00am, pack up camp, and then head up towards camp 4 together. It would be a big day! Heavy packs (and I would have an extra 6# for my skis!) and trail breaking from ~23,000' to ~24,400'... It was gonna be a smoker!
July 15th: As we planned, we got up at 3:00am and packed up camp. I made sure to wear some of my summit clothes this time to avoid cold feet issues. We began moving up towards camp 4 in the dark and luckily had a few hundred feet of boot pack that the Polish climbers had put in, but then the real work began. Sean was crushing it like always and broke trail first, wallowing through hip deep snow at times. The route increased in steepness and made it hard to break trail. The ridge had exposed rock to the left on the ridge proper and then the slopes to the right were snow covered. We would alternate between cramponing on the exposed rock until we were tired of sliding on the rock surface and breaking trail through the snow, where it was just a lot of work. We would find random segments of old fixed rope and pull it out of the snow to help guide us to what we hoped would be an easy route up, but the route didn't get any easier, but at least we could pull on the ropes to help! #NoShame At the beginning, Sean, Matt G and I were rotating between breaking trail and following, poor Ben was moving too slow to catch up to us even as we were breaking trail. Eventually. Matt G started having issues with his crampons (may or may not have been self imposed haha) and every time he would break trail, one would slip off his boot so he would have to pull over to fix it, by which time myself or Sean was now breaking trail. Eventually it was basically just myself and Sean breaking trail, and I was out in front for most of it. It was hard work, but we knew it needed to be done, so we kept plodding along. In hindsight, I definitely pushed my pace faster than I should have. I wanted to make sure that I was contributing to the effort, but I should have been more conscious of my breathing and heart rate, because they were telling me to slow down... #ForeshadowingAlert Sean topped out the last rock feature, but I couldn't see that it was the last one. He called down "Don't worry, we only have a few more hours" and I was devastated. It was only when I got closer that he told me it was a joke and that camp 4 was just up ahead, THANK GOODNESS! I topped out the little rock segment and sure enough, camp 4 was up ahead, maybe another 200' up. I slowly broke trail up to where old tents from years past were frozen into the landscape. We tried to find a relatively flat area so we wouldn't have to shovel forever, but couldn't find it. As we shoveled into the snowy and icy slope, Matt G arrived and assisted. As we were finishing up, maybe after an hour or so, Ben arrived. We set up tents and tried to get some relax time in so that we would be ready for tomorrow, THE SUMMIT! Everyone felt very tired, but other than that, no serious issues. We were excited to get after it in a few hours. We decided to wake up at 2:00am and get going by 3:00am. There would be much more trail breaking to do, and we would need the entire day to do it. We all tried to go to sleep, which didn't seem very likely due to the lack of oxygen. As we would fall asleep, our breathing pattern would return to "normal" and so you would constantly wake up out of breath and feeling like you were suffocating, super fun!
July 16th: At 2:00am there was a pretty strong wind and snow, either it was snowing or the wind was transporting snow. Either way, we all opted to wait it out a day since the winds were pretty strong. The wind had been pushing snow into our vestibule and in through our ventilation panels on the tent, so we had closed the tent up completely. There were now huge frost icicles hanging from the inside of our tent that would constantly fall onto us, making sleeping somewhat stressful. The entire inside of our tent was a mini avalanche just waiting to release haha We waited till the sun started to come out before moving around and knocking the frost off, soaking everything. Luckily the wind abated and we were able to dry everything out all the way. It was nice that we were able to dry stuff out, but we thought that maybe we should have gone for it in the morning now that the wind had cleared... During the entire day, I progressively felt worse and worse. I was abnormally out of breath as I got out of the tent and went pee just 15' away. I would lay ion the tent, try to drink a few sips of water every 15 min (usually failed), and would just lay there with my hands on my forehead. At ~24,400' you don't recover, even if you are #ChillinLikeAVillain, you just slowly decay as your body struggles to upkeep itself with a lack of oxygen. Add in nutrient depletion that your body needs to work to correct, and you can see how additional time at this altitude doesn't really make you recover much. 10:30pm I awoke in the tent to difficulty breathing, not just shortness of breath, but had to breath at a very fast rate just to catch my breath. Hours prior, I had been ok breathing normal, but this was a big change. Reason did not hit me yet. I coughed and I heard the gurgling… I couldn’t believe it and did it multiple times to confirm… I had the gurgling. I had experienced HAPE on Manaslu, and this was a repeat... On Manaslu I had felt abnormally drained and then had developed a gurgling sound in my lungs due to fluid build up, and had had difficulty breathing while lying down. I sat in disbelief for awhile, mind racing. I knew I had HAPE again and I needed to get down, but it was the beginning of the night and I was at 24,400’, terrible timing. I yelled to Ben that I had the early signs HAPE and needed to descend while I could do so under my own power. He confirmed and I said I would try to get to base camp ASAP. It seemed that my decision was made and it was time to descend. 11:00pm I began to get ready, very slowly. I boiled some water for my Nalgenes to warm my toes and got hand warmers activated for my hands. I let my hands and toes get warm before I put my ski boots/overboots on. Then I packed my sleeping bag, which at the time was a very exhaustive process, so much so that Matt G helped finish the task for me. Throughout my preparations Matt was asking if he needed to descend with me and I firmly stated that I was ok to descend alone, and that I did not want to take aware their summit bid. I believe firmly in being self reliant, and at this point in time I was capable to getting myself down. Once my things were ready, I sacked up the courage to brave the cold and crawled outside. There were random winds, but nothing crazy, just little gusts. The temps were cold, but not scary cold. I packed my backpack then walked to the other side of the tent to where my poles/skis were. Walking the 20’ took a few minutes. I reached the skis/poles and threw my bag on the ground, I had a moment of doubt on whether I should leave yet. I decide to go back in the tent to rewarm myself before descending. I crawled back in and told Matt G I was warming up before I went. Laying in the tent in my down bibs and parka was not warm and I wished my sleeping bag wasn’t packed away in my pack. Matt G asked multiple times if I was warm yet, obviously worried that if I stayed up here longer my condition could worsen, but I kept delaying and saying I still needed to warm up, which was partly true. In my head I do not want to leave yet, skiing in the dark worried me, but I knew if I was on the snowy slopes I could easily make long traversing turns and descend quickly while still being safe. I continued to delay as I passed in and out of “sleep”. July 17th: 1:30am Finally, I realized I really needed to head down. I roused myself and headed outside, reluctantly. I found my ice axe buried in the snow, and secured it to my backpack then put my skis on. Before I departed I yelled “Good luck my friends” and got responses from Ben, Sean, and Matt G, but was unable to distinguish what was said. I began skiing down. The night was clear with a near full moon, but my headlamp drowned out the ambient light and all I could see was my cone of visibility. I got vertigo a few times as I was moving since I couldn't process my surroundings quick enough because of only having visibility from my headlamp and moving relatively quickly. I arrived at the lip that is just below camp 4 and I remembered it having shallow snow cover and rocks beneath when we climbed up it, so I approached cautiously. I moved to the edge of the lip to the skiers left of where we came up, where there looked to be a decent amount of snow. It wasn't a vertical drop off, but it was a ~10’ drop to the probably 45 degree slopes below. In a normal state of mind, maybe this would have scared me or made me decide to take skis off and down climb, but at the time it was just what needed to be done in my mind. I dropped off the lip at an angle to the left, and quickly felt rock under my skis at the bottom of the lip. I tumbled, but in the deep snow below I stop immediately. I right myself and shook it off. I seemed to have no emotional reaction to falling, just simply got up and focused on the next part. I knew that from here down it was steep-ish skiing (45 degrees max) with no obstacles, minus the rocky portion of the ridge to the skiers right. I felt no issue with continuing to descend via skis. I had a mental picture of the rocky ridge being further right, so I descended more or less straight down from my position, thinking I had a large enough safety margin away from the rocks to not hit any that were hidden under new, shallow snow. I made a few turns, vertigo causing my balance to fade a few times, but again, no falling. Around turn 5-6, all of the sudden I began tumbling. Not tumbling where you frantically scratch at anything to come to a stop. Tumbling where you feel like you are simply along for the ride, wherever it may take you. I tumbled maybe 2 times and luckily came to a stop, it all happened very quickly and my oxygen deprived brain must have been to slow to react. I had come to a stop on steep rock, maybe 40 degrees. I had come to a stop on a small rocky bulge and noticed my right ski was ~15’ below me. Again, in my state of mind, I did not seem to have any emotional connection with reality, I just realized "I need my ski", so I began down climbing with my left ski still on and my right boot without crampons. Almost to my ski, my non-cramponed boot slipped a little bit and kicked off some rocks that hit my ski below... I watched as my ski started bouncing / sliding down the rock slope. Sparks flew as I quietly and emotionlessly said “No, no, no”, it was probably pretty comical if it was on video! My ski was gone now, making my left ski useless. I sat on the rock, removed my left ski, and finally with some amount of emotion, threw my other ski down the rock slope in a low energy sort of anger, and watched again as the sparks flew. I remained seated and took off my pack to get my crampons. It was at this time that I realized how steep the rock was as I tried to get solid footing/seating to put my crampons on. Getting a solid seated position to raise a leg and put my crampon on proved to be quite difficult as my body wanted to just keep sliding down as I lifted a leg of the rock. Once my crampons were on, I noticed that during the fall, the right leg of my down bibs has been torn open badly and was leaking down feathers everywhere. Not a huge issue, I thought, just might get a little chilly. I traversed to the snow to the left where I would be safer on foot and after a few steps downward realized it will be slow going, I was post holing on the descent, the mountain wasn't giving me up easy. I decided that walking down was too slow for me and decided to glissade a bit. I descended ~50’ and then traversed back to the right to stay away from the open slope and closer to the ridge, which would lead me to camp 3. I continued this process for about 45 minutes to an hour, as snow was shoved into my torn open down bibs, draining the warmth from my right leg and foot. ~3:30am I kept sliding down then traversing until I could see 3 tents. As I slid down beside the first tent, Don Bowie peaked his head out and asked me what was up. I informed him of my HAPE and my fall and showed him my down bibs (he would later say that he wished he had taken a picture of me since I was kind of out of it, down feathers flying everywhere at 3:00am, apparently with a huge thing of snot hanging out of my nose haha). He asked about the other 3 at camp 4 and I let him know that they planned to summit that morning. I had secretly hoped that nobody would be at C3 and I could "dirt bag" into a tent to get warm real quick haha My right foot had become increasingly colder during the descent because of the snow I had gotten in my down bibs. I decided not to dirtbag in a tent, and continued down towards camp 2, where I had a tent and would rewarm myself. I began descending towards camp 2, and once I got to the cache spot at 22,100’ I ran into Dennis Urupko, a professional climber and LEGEND from Russia, as he headed to camp 3 for his summit push. We had a brief encounter as I told him my story. As we parted ways he gave me a pat on the shoulder and said "Good luck", I felt like a little kid getting a pat on the shoulder haha ~5:30am I arrived to camp 2 feeling pretty tired and excited to sit in my tent for a bit before descending further. My lungs felt better but my energy was still very low. When I got to my tent, I found a pair of boots in my vestibule... I called out "Who's in there" and heard some rummaging before I heard Sanu's voice. If it wasn't Sanu, I would have been a bit pissed off. #RantTime I saw multiple people "dirt bag" in other people's tents on the mountain, whether or not they had coordinated with the owners, I am not sure. I personally feel that unless there is an emergency or you have coordinated with the owner of the tent, you should never just use someone else's tent. On this expedition, I had food and gas used that I had cached up at camp 2, and I'm sure that whoever used MY SUPPLIES also used the tent. I would later come to find out that it was Atantas, the Bulgarian from our base camp, that told Sanu he could use my tent. Nothing had been coordinated with me and when I questioned Atanas about it later, he said that he had room in his tent for Sanu (Atanas hired Sanu as his Sherpa). I was astounded by his decision to give my tent up for grabs before his own, when it was his Sherpa who needed shelter and he had room in his tent, and it hadn't been coordinated with me whatsoever. In summation, unless you have coordinated with the owner or unless you are in an emergency, DON'T TOUCH OTHER PEOPLE'S STUFF. #RantOver I got some rest time in before I decided it was time to continue descending so that I could make sure the HAPE didn't either return or worsen. At this point, I was feeling much better, but knew that it was still a problem. I had descended before my condition could get bad enough to prevent a self-rescue, but I wasn't in the clear yet. The going was slow, but I made my way down the banana ridge, and a few hours later (I was moving really slowly!) I arrived at camp 1. It wouldn't be safe to descend until late at night or early in the morning so I tried to get some rest and decided to join up with Mr Mohammad to rope up through the icefall at 4:00am.
July 18th: I awoke at 3:00am and by 4:00am, Mr Mohammad and I are roped up and descending to base camp. The going is quick this time, since we left at the coldest time of night and there was a solid freeze. The icefall was still in bad shape now, but with a solid freeze it wasn't much of an issue. 2 and a half hours later and we arrive to base camp, where they have breakfast waiting for me, some fried eggs, they tasted so good!!! July 19th - 29th: Base Camp Recovery The short story of this 11 day period is that I went through periods of motivation, doubtfulness, introspection, among other things. Below are some key things that occurred. Matt G, Sean, and Ben all summited G2 the day that I descended!!!!!!!! Sean broke trail the entire way to the summit, what an absolute monster! Don Bowie agreed to allow me onto his rope to get up through the icefall for another attempt with him and Lotta. He checked my lungs a few days in a row and thought I was fit to go back up, and I wanted to give it another shot. Matt, Sean, and Ben departed base camp a few days after their return, along with a lot of the other people in base camp. Eventually it would just be myself, Don, Lotta, and Denis left in base camp. It turned into a ghost town which was cool to have the place to yourself, but being in the weird emotional/mental state I was in, it wasn't the best feeling. Don Bowie and Denis Urubko went up to perform the rescue of the skier on G7, this took a lot out of Don which postponed our second summit attempt. The other skier, Cala Cimenti (the guy who signed the ski in the K2 hotel in the first trip report!), came down after the rescue and after his successful ski descent of G7, and sold me his backup pair of skis so that I would still have a shot at getting a summit ski descent on G2. Super cool guy and a legend in high altitude ski mountaineering! Lots and lots of waiting in base camp. It drove me crazy. I would go through highs (when a second shot at the summit seemed likely) and lows (when the summit attempt got postponed and I could do nothing about it because I needed a partner to rope up with). Through this period of time, I was lucky to have the support of my family and friends through my InReach messages. These daily messages kept me afloat mentally and emotionally, especially thanks to Jordan Wall and Ellianne Bowen. When I was down, they were positive and brought me up, THANK YOU! Finally, Don was rested from his rescue and we had a weather window (there had been 3-4 days of precipitation that came through). We decided that we would depart for our summit attempt on July 30th.
July 30th - August 2nd: Summit Push 2 July 30th We departed towards camp 1 as a single rope team of 4: myself, Don, Lotta, and Denis Urubko. Denis had already summited via the standard route and was going back up to attempt his new route. The ice fall was in even worse shape and it took us a long time to weave our way through. I fell into a crevasse up to my armpits and when we were nearly to camp 1, Denis fell completely in and had to go back into it to get his crampons and glove (unfortunately he lost his sunglasses in there and had to wear goggles for his summit attempt). We noticed that there was a good amount of new snow, and the standard route was quite loaded... This was not a great sign. We would now have to break trail and also risk the avalanche danger on the avalanche prone slopes. There was also signs of natural avalanches near the standard route, which is definitely not a good sign. We settled in and decided to give tomorrow as a rest day to see how conditions settled out.
July 31st: We all rested in camp 1 on this day and our group (Don, Lotta, and myself) decided that the avalanche risk mixed with the amount of trail breaking that would be required, was not feasible for us. Our expedition was essentially over. It felt good to not have to risk the avalanche danger, but it REALLY sucked knowing that I would not get a summit ski descent. This was now the 2nd time I have failed on an 8,000m peak... I have still accomplished a lot on this expedition and am proud of the style and effort I climbed with, but in the end, I failed to accomplish my main objective. This eats at me. We now turned into a support team of sorts for Denis Urubko. Denis decided that his new route would not be under as much avalanche danger, so he decided he would leave at 8:00pm. He would climb up to the lookers left of the standard route and climb directly up the summit pyramid. From there he planned to descend the standard route in the early morning hours so that he would avoid being on the avalanche prone slopes in any midday heat. He departed at ~8:30pm for his epic attempt. August 1st: For us, this day was yet another day of waiting and "resting". I slept weird and my shoulder and neck was killing me (I would later discover that my right Serratus Anterior muscle was paralyzed from sleeping on it weird, likely due to pinching of the Long Thoracic Nerve, and even now as I write this, it is still paralyzed.... very frustrating). At ~12:30 we saw the tiny dot that was Denis Urubko. It was incredible to see him all by himself high up on the mountain. It had been ~16 hours and he was around the elevation of camp 4. We watched his progress and soon he was out of sight again. The dude is a beast! Later that night, we kept an eye out for Denis' headlamp but did not see anything. Around 10:30 I looked out of my tent and saw a headlamp going across the traverse below the summit pyramid. Denis was alive and had likely summited and was now descending! Later we would find out that he summited right at 8:30pm, meaning he summited in 24 hours from camp 1 to the summit, absolutely nuts! When he was traversing, he couldn't wear his goggles because they were too dark so he had to leave his eyes bare. As the wind whipped on him, his eyes were getting cold and preventing him from seeing very well. He ended up doing a standing bivy around camp 4 because he couldn't see exactly where he was. Incredible!
August 2nd: We woke up and looked up on the mountain to see if we could see Denis, and lo and behold, there he was. He was descending from camp 3 to camp 2 and appeared to be making good progress. Don and I decided to meet him at the base of the mountain to bring him snacks and water and also so he could rope up with us to cross the basin. Soon, we were at the base of the mountain and Denis arrived, where congratulations were in order! He looked wiped, but was very happy with his accomplishment! I gave him my "lemon and mint" tang mix, which he downed happily. As we walked back towards camp 1, Denis threw his arms in the air and let out a victory yell. It was awesome to be present for this very cool moment!
August 3rd: After returning to camp 1, we all waited until early morning again before descending to base camp. We would arrive to base camp and have a few hours to pack before we would depart for Ali camp, the first of 3 days of walking before we were back in civilization.
August 3rd - August 8th: Trek to Skardu via Gondogoro Pass and return to United States The trek out via Gondogor Pass was way better than the Baltoro. The Baltoro is dirty and long, whereas the Gondogoro was very clean and well kept as well as being much shorter. The days were very long but it was worth it to get out quicker. The first day we descended from camp 1 then left for Ali camp a few hours later and didn't arrive until 8:30pm. We got very minimal sleep due to some loud trekking groups and left to go over Gondogoro Pass at 1:00am. I stupidly didn't bring my ski boots to climb the pass and of course it started snowing as we went up to the 18,000'+ pass. My La Sportiva TX2 shoes are amazing and I love them, but they definitely weren't the shoe to be climbing in snow up to 18,000'+ haha oh well, live and learn. Once you gain Gondogoro pass, you go down the other side which is very steep. There was heavy wet snow covering everything so the traction was terrible, but luckily they have fixed ropes in place that you can hold onto. I didn't feel so bad about my feet situation when I noticed that literally every single porter had tennis shoes on, but it still wasn't optimal. After you descend the pass, you have amazing views of possibly my favorite peak ever, Laila Peak, and you see green grass for the first time! We stopped at a tea house in the valley before continuing on until Saicho Camp. We slept in Saicho camp and then had a short 2 hour walk until the village of Hushe, where we were driven by jeep to Skardu. Hushe was very beautiful and everyone was very nice. Another notable thing about the Gondogoro Pass route is that all of the trails are very well maintained and the people of Hushe go so far as to have you fill out a questionaire on the cleanliness of the route. I was very impressed with their effort to make the Gondogoro Pass route as awesome as possible! I stayed in Skardu for a day before flying back to Islamabad and then the following morning began my travel back to the states. This was definitely the kind of adventure I was looking for when I decided to come to the Karakoram, and although I wasn't 100% successfu with my goal, you can bet that I'll be training my ass off in Colorado this coming year and that I will be back to put some ski tracks on one of the 8,000m giants! Mark my words!
Thanks for reading, hope you either If not, sorry not sorry haha P.S. I'll be back Karakoram!!!!!!!!! Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow): 
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