Trip Reports

Gasherbrum II - 4 June to 24 July '05

Written by Leader, August 2005

An accumulation of winter snow from below Concordia caused our team a few porter problems on the trek in to GII base camp, which we reached in the second week of June. With the help of our High Altitude Porters (HAPs), we started finding a way through the icefall and were the first team on the mountain to establish camp 1, before then setting about fixing rope on the ridge leading to camp 2.

At this point, a prolonged period of bad weather enforced a nine-day stay at base camp. As soon as conditions allowed, we continued fixing rope and established camp 2. Heavy snowfall again forced a return to base camp and unfortunately, we ran out of time for a summit attempt. When we left base camp on the 18 July, no teams had yet reached camp 3. The first climbers to reach the summit did so on 21 July and had to plough through deep, unstable snow. Our past three expeditions had great weather in this period of July, but this season, we were evidently very unlucky!

All Jagged Globe team members had been going well, slept well at camp 2 and could have gone higher on the mountain had time and weather permitted. There were a large number of expeditions in the Karakoram this year (12 on GII alone) and 2006 is the 50th anniversary of the first ascent of Gasherbrum II, so it is set to be another busy year on the mountain.

Peter Thompson, expedition leader« | »

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