Back to part one

24 June
Yesterday was a rest day here at Base Camp. Rest day here means shower, laundry, sleeping, eating and planning for the next move. I had a bit of a discussion with the head guide about what our next move should be - I have a feeling he is rushing into things since this is his first guided expedition where he works as the guide. He wanted to take everybody up to Camp one in the night while I thought we are not yet quite acclimatized and therefore should wait another day. In the end part of the team went up last night and some of us stayed here and will head up next night.

Veikka, Hiro and Kasi came back this morning after spending one night up at Camp 1. They said the route is now good and that they had enjoyed being up there at around 6000m.

The acclimatissation has gone well, nobody has been really sick - except for one fellow who two nights ago probably had a bit of oedema as we got up to the dump - he was staggering around and couldnt keep his balance. But he is ok now. The altitude here at 5075m can still be felt as soon as you lie down in the afternoon and start drifting off the breath slows down and you start gasping for air. Seems to be the same for everybody but it is understandable as we have only spent 5 nights here yet. It's ok during the night though, this happens mostly only during the day for some peculiar reason...

Otherwise the nights here are very cold, it usually snows a bit in the evening and night, but then the days are very sunny and hot and staying inside the tent is not always possible even with sleeping bags across the roof to cool things down. High altitude sauna...

So, the plan is that we head on up to Camp 1 at 2 in the morning, taking with us the rest of our personal high camp stuff such as down clothes and expedition mittens. After that we start hauling food and gas up there. We will spend one night at C1 and then come down here again for a few days rest. After that it is up again, probably for another night at C1 plus an attempt at fixing the route to Camp 2 and hopefully being able to take a few tents there as well. But lets see about that - it all depends on the weather and how well we acclimatize.
All in all we will probably walk up and down the icefall 3-4 times.

By the way, it turns ot that this 7 week intensive course in German (as I thought) is not that - but instead a listening corse in Austrian. And of course Austrian and its different dialects - which is what most of these guys speak, sometimes not even understanding each other - is to me totally incomprehensible. They might as well be speaking in Urdu. So meal times usually involve hectic discussions about various topics of which I have no clue until somebody realises that hey wait a minute we've got this guy here who doesn't understand. Then I usually get a one sentence executive summary of what has been discussed, say aha ok and the game continues. This is of course at the times when I am not telling jokes in revenge for them to have something to wonder about :-)
But hey, Näin se homma etenee! (roughly translated from FInnish it means this is how things move on, but of course doesn't sound that good :-)) 

Next time I hope to be able to connect once we get bac from Camp 1, ie in a couple of days. So dont go anywhere.

Hem och till F&F - allt lungt och ok!

26 June
Back to Base Camp from Camp 1. Some of us already went to set up Camp 1 two days ago and the rest of us left yesterday early in the morning. We arrived at Camp 1 6 1/2 hours later, pretty exhausted for mainly two reasons - some of us (such as me) packed too much to carry up, and secondly because the sun really started burning abot 30 min before reaching camp and it is pretty amazing how fast it will suck all the energy out of you. In any case, we brought with us some rope and a couple of guys immediately walked over to the mountain wall itself starting to prepare the route there. The wall looks a lot steeper in real life than from the photos...:-)

Camp 1 is in a pretty amazing place. You have Gasherbrums 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7 on all sides and when the light is right the view can hardly be described. Our Camp lies about 400-500m from the wall itself, ie at a safe distance in case there is an avalanche. Althogh those who were there last year say that it is a lot drier this year, ie the risk of avalanches is a lot smaller.
The remparature there at night is below freezing but in the day it must be in the 40's so the only way to cool down apart from digging yourself a tunnel and hiding under ground is to cover the tent with your sleeping bags and the lie there with both doors open. In that case the temperature inside is actually quite nice but as soon as you step outside it is like being hit in the head with a stove from a sauna.

We have also probed the area around the camp, meaning walked around with a long stick and probing the snow to look for any hidden crevasses. Then we mark the area that is safe and nobody walks outside it without being roped up. Just last week a Frenchman did that and suddeny disappeared into a crevasse in Camp 2 for Gasherbrum 1. So we definitely do not want that to happen again. You can still see people walking around alone and unroped a bit here and there but perhaps they have a death warrant they want to execute...

So most of us got back this morning, I just had a shower and washed some laundry and now we are waiting for lunch to arrive. It will probably consist of some sort of veggie soup, chapattis, tea, coffee and potatoes. But it is actually pretty good and I haven't heard anyone protest yet.

Next couple of days will be spent here to rest, and if the weather holds we will go up and properly set up camp 2, which a few of the guys were going to attempt today before coming down here.

More about that in the next few days!

27 June
Base Camp. Today we have not done much anything. The only thing perhaps requiring a collective effort was doing some maintenance work on the tent platforms. The reason is that what we are walking, standing, sitting and sleeping on is a moraine ridge in between two glaciers. Apparently this moraine ridge also moves.. This moraine ridge consists of ice, ice mixed with rocks gravel and sand, and rocks gravel and sand. Now when the sun burns down all day the ice quickly melts around the tents leaving the tents on pedestals. It of course makes getting into and out of the tents a bit tricky and could even mean that the whole contraption falls over. We don't want that...

So we moved rocks around, hacked away at the ice etc so now we should be good for another 1-2 weeks.
Other than that several teams are still up there at C1 / C2 and should be getting down either later today or early tomorrow as the weather seems to be turning. After that the plan is to wait a day or so and hope for better weather. Once that happens we move up as quickly as the ravens here to C1 and spend the night. Then comes carrying up the 7 other tents to Camp 2 and spending the night there. If all goes well we will even then make a final carry of the tents to Camp 3 and then hustle down to Base. But again, all this of course depends on the weather and our condition.

That's all for now - hopefully you have been able to listen in on Veikka's reports at 1130 each day and taken a look at the pictures and Japanese characters at HIro's web site. That should help in giving you a good picture about what's going on here!

Bis later och halsningar hem. Vi har annu tva ol i gomman med Veikka, for sakerhets skull om det skulle ga bra med projektet har :-)

2 July BC. Just finished a typical BC breakfast consisting of tea, coffee, more tea, cornflakes/mysli with milk powder sugar and hot water (yummy!!), omelette and a various assortment of marmalades and honey. There are also some Austrian stuff in various colourful tubes but I haven’t gathered enough courage to taste those yet.

Last time I wrote the weather was turning bad. On 28,29 we had more bad weather – well it was snowing. And when it snows the solar panels obviously don’t work. And you can guess the rest. During those days there is not much to do except lie in the tent and read and sleep. One day is great, two days are ok but three days are already a bit too much for a restless soul like me. Fortuntely I got a bunch of finnish magazines such as Image, Talouselama, Optio etc from Veikka so it makes the time pass easier.

On the 30th we got word that the weather would be improving so our fearless leader immeadiately made the decision that we would go up to 1 in the morning. However because of a wrong turn in the ice fall and because of one fellow who really shouldn't be here it took us 7,5 hours to get to C1 at 6000m.

It was snowing lightly the whole way and after three days of snow it was very heavy going. At arrival we had to dig out the tents from underneath the snow before being able to crawl inside. As the sun rose - despite the light snowfall, despite the altitude, despite being on top of at least 200-300m of snow and ice - the temeperature in camp got unbearably hot. This time we couldn’t even throw the sleeping bags over the tent because of the snowfall so we were basically just lying in the tent gasping for air waiting forn time to pass and listening to the small avalanches on three sides on the gasherbrum slopes.

The snowfall didn’t stop so in the afternoon Herbert decided that we would descend in the morning which was of course a big disappointment as we had just spent a lot of energy ascending.

Yesterday and today we have got some excellent forecasts so in the morning we are going up again. The plan is to sleep one night at camp 1, another night at camp 2 (6500m), and then push the tents to Camp 3 (7000m) and then descend to BC for some resting..

And then it is time for the final push!

So until Sun or Mon, halsningar hem and have a good weekend!

7 July
Once more back in Base Camp. We had a pretty interesting trip. Before going, everybody (almost) had gotten a bad case of summit fever, so everybody except for me agreed that this would be a summit attempt. I disagreed strongly as I thought it was too early as we hadn't even spent one night at C2 yet!. But this went to deaf ears.
So in any case we went to C1, spent one night there, then ascended to C2 (about 6500m), which was a pretty tough climb along fixed ropes up a steep ridge.

The rest of the group decided to push up to C3 the following morning. I decided to stay. Better to acclimatize properly than to do anything stupid.

So,the following morning I left for C3,

which was a pretty steep climb as well. In some places only ice, in others mixed snow and ice, but so steep that fixed ropes were absolutely necessary in order to pull oneself up with and ascender called Jumar and with the ice axe. Took me about 3 1/2 hours to get to 6800m.

At that point the camp was empty except for one fellow. The whole group had decided to face the odds and do a summit attempt. This one guy had made it about 4 hours up before not having more energy and descending. I then sat in the tent waiting. Slowly, hours later, people started appearing, looking absolutely and totally exhausted. Later, once all had arrived here was the saldo: one case of odoema that was cured by bringing up oxygen to the guy, two cases of falling about 50m near the summit, all being utterly exhausted and some of them having to be helped down. But two people also summited against all odds! Unfortunately the weather wasn't very good so they didn't even get good pictures:-)

In the end we all descended - I to C1 with three others and the rest stayed at C2. We got back this morning and are still waiting for the exhausted group.

Right now it is only me who is prepared to go back for a summit attempt as I now feel acclimatized enough to avoid any stupid risks. So I have agreed with the Italians that I could join them when they decide to leave - provided of course that the weather agrees!

In hindsight I am extremely happy that I went against the main stream and listened to my common sense and decided to take it easy and not risk anything stupid. We are very lucky that nobody died yeasterday. The situation was pretty serious.

But it is good to be back - I just had a shower and it feels great!

July 9 Greetings again from Base Camp. Today we have done nothing. Interestingly enough everybody else has now decided to leave, including the guide (which sounds a bit peculiar since i am a paying client here..). They will all leave on Friday. That leaves just me here.

Oh by the way Veikka, Hiro and Kasi summited yesterday, am right now waiting for them to come back to camp.

The only thing going on right now is waiting for a weather report so I can then join either the Italians or the American North Face team for a summit attempt. The good thing is that I will have two high altitude porters and I will gladly let them do most of the carrying :-)
Most likely I will go to camp 2 first to spend the night, then Camp 3 for 1/2-1 day, and then for the summit. With any good luck I could go on up early Fri morning and go for the summit on Sun or Mon! But as said, all now depends on the weather report. Apparently it is supposed to be good from Mon but we are now waiting for some updates.

Until later!

15 July

Have had an interesting few days here. I left for higher camps on Thu morning with the professional American athletes from the North Face team. This would be our summit attempt. At arrival at Camp 1 where I was supposed to pick up one high altitude porter and some of my gear – I instead found him sleeping in my tent in my sleeping bag… I may not smell like a bag of perfumes after running around the icefall but these gu to Camp 2. Instead of lasting about 3 hours, it took 6 and I was totally beat. There was supposed to be a tent for me waiting but apparently it had blown away down into a crevasse. That didn’t exactly make my day any better…. In the end I found another tent in a crevasse and slept in it. The following day I pushed on up to Camp 3 at a a niceys…they smell like roses from last year. Well in any case he was supposed to carry some of my gear up to Camp 2. However he refused and no matter of coaxing would get him to change his mind. So I took all the 25 kgs myself up the banana ridge and fast pace. The Americans followed in the afternoon. I had wanted to do the summit attempt on Sun morning but after some discussions about trail breaking etc it was agreed to wait until Monday, in the hope for better weather.

Well, Sunday dawned nice and crispy clear but with high winds. I regretted not having gone for the summit, but I preferred the security of the group versus being up there all by myself. Towards the evening the wind rose and it started snowing, but as agreed the summit attempt was on at one in the morning.

We got up in the windy and snowy morning and started pushing our way up. It was very heavy going and the winds and snow was just increasing. Some 3-4 hours later, at around 7400m we were finally forced to give up, the snow conditions had just gotten too dangerous and it would have been very foolish to continue.

So back down we went. The conditions got worse throughout the day and in the afternoon I decided to start heading down as I had run out of food. The other guys decided to wait. I got down to Base Camp about 6 hours later, at 9 in the evening and was extremely happy to be back, summit or not. I ran into Veikka at Camp 1 where I ate his soup and continued

He was getting ready for his Gasherbrum 1 push.

Today I have spent relaxing and packing and spending time with the Japanese guys. Tomorrow morning I head of through the Gondoro pass with one of the high altitude porters to Skardu where I should arrive in three days. Will get back online there and give you an update about the last part of thia expedition.

So, the other expedition guys gave up and left last Friday, I stayed and went for an final summit attempt. I didn’t make it to the Gasherbrum 2 summit but I did reach my own summit. I know there would have been no way to get to the real summit the night we tried and am happy that we chose safety before risk and turned around. No regrets there and I am happy about our decisions in that sense. I also now have a much better idea what this game is all about and understand much better how big of a part the weather gods play in this game.

Well, now I must return this super mini laptop to HIro before the battery runs out, so until Fri or Saturday!

Och halsningar hem, allt ar bra och ser fram emot att snart vara hemma!

18 July

Wow is all I can say. What exhausting and tough two last days I have had. Here's the story...

Last time I was lucky enough to be able to borrow Hiro's mini laptop. Now I am even luckier in that I am sitting in the Motel Concordia lobby and writing on an old PC. The luck being the fact that I am here and not what I am writing on...

So lets go back a few days...to the 16th, ie Wednesday. The problem here was which way to return back to civilisation from Base Camp. There are two options (aside from being evacuated) - return the same way we came or take the route through the Gondo Koro La pass. A tough choice, but about one day shorter. I bet you can guess which one I chose.

The other of the High Altitude Porters, Korbin (who is 51 yrs old), and myself left Base Camp late in the morning at 730 a bit later than the porter who ran off with my two duffel bags (that he was going to take down the Baltoro, ie the same way we came. This because normal porters are not allowed to cross the pass because of its steepness and difficulty).

At first the going was very nice - downhill and on a pretty good path. What lied ahead was crossing the glacier to the other side and that was to prove much more difficult than we thought. But before that we enjoyed a brisk pace that perfect day with the absolutely beautiful scenery surrounding us. This was of course scenery we had seen before on the way to Base Camp but it is still stunning no matter how many times you see it. And now I knew a bit better what lied on the other side of especially the Gasherbrum group.

A few hours down we started trying to cross the ice flow. This was to prove extremely difficult as the ice flow is in fact many parallell ice "rivers" intersected with parallell moraine flows. The moraine is not bad, just a huge rumble of rocks stone and sand but the ice rivers are something else. They are like small ice mountain ranges with extremely steep sides and easily 10-20m high. This means you can't very easily climb them without proper equipment (that went with the porter earlier in the morning). Adn even if you do you will face a very sharp ridge followed by a steep downclimb. Ok doesn't sound so bad does it perhaps. Now lets make this a bit more difficult for all you adrenaline addicts. Lets put real rivers in between the ice ranges. Real rivers, 2-4m wide and up to 1-2m deep with supercooled water flowing down a massive rate. So even if you make it up on one of these ridges it doesn't mean you can climb down on the other side. Instead you must climb back and walk along, try again, until you find a place where the ice has fallen over the flowing water or where it has carved its way through the ice. Only then can you cross. Get the picture? You could of course also just build a small raft and float down the thing...

So this took us a while.

Next was the majestic view of K2 and Broad Peak. Stayed for a while to take lots of pictures and enjoy the view. Truly a site to see once in your lifetime at least.

From this glacier junction we turned off to the SW, one junction before the Baltoro turns the same way. We followed the glacier/moraine ridge up for some hours until reaching Ali Camp at 4961m, 9 hours of walking later.. This was to be our camp for the night.

Wake up call at 1 am on Thursday 16 July. Up and away at 2. The silent morning walk over the fallen stones from the mountain to the right of us was almost spiritual..or perhaps better to say eery. I got the feeling we were in the Lord of the Rings movie where the three small people climb up the steep steps cut into the mountain and then suddenly this huge door opens and the dragons fly out and all the weird creatures come marching out. I was expecting the mountain to open up any time and us having to hide under the rocks and eat chapattis instead of elven bread. Well, needless to say that didn't happen so after a short while we moved over to the glacier itself and started diagonally crossing the cul de sac closed off by the mountains.

As we got closer to the Gondo Koro La, the ground got steeper and steeper. There are some fixed ropes in place but they are not meant for use with equipment, just to hold on to, mostly morally. Without the ropes it must be extremely tough to climb this pass as even with the ropes the going was very tough. I think it took us about 2 hours in the cold to reach the top of the pass at 5600m just as the sun started to rise. We caught the majestic view of K2 as well as the Gasherbrum group in the predawn light.

Then came the descent. I think that was the scariest descent I have done. It is a very steep mountainside with lots and lots of loose rock. The only thing keeping the rocks from falling is the cold. Well, it almost keeps them from falling, but not 100% so every now and then there is stuff coming down whizzing past. It was tough I can tell you and for anyone planning to trek up through the pass - bring a helmet and get a good insurance.

Finally down it took about 1 hour and then suddenly we were in a green oasis called Kuspan at 4700m. It lies in the V formed by two huge moraines backed up by two mountain ranges. What a relief! Havent I always said that there is nothing like the smell of grass, flowers and fresh cow dung after spending 6 weeks in the wilderness with smell of nothing but what you can produce yourself :-)

Korbin was by now quite finished. 1-2 hour break, after which I decided to hire a porter for the porter. Luckily a friend of his showed up who I managed to hire for 15 euros to take some of our stuff down. So we continued.

A long tough walk again, first easier going down the glaciers, but then tougher as wehad to walk on the steep hillside along a path that was a mix of sand and rocks. That meant it was soft and that it had collapsed in many places forcing us to climb up and down. And up wasn't exactly what we wanted.. In the hot sunshine we also ran out of water. This may sound strange with huge glaciers around but at this lower altitude the hillsides were dry and the glaicer river flowing in teh middle of the valley was filled with sediment and therefore non-drinkable. Three hours later, after cming to an area where some trees were grogin we finally arrived at the next site where again it was time for some chapttis and coffee. Nw we had two choices - stay the night or continue to Hushe, our last and final destination on foot. Eventually the coffee powered up good old Korbin and we set off on the last 2 hour section.

And then, two hot hours later at around 18, the wonderful beautiful green oasis of Hushe! What a beautiful place, nestled in this narrow valley with the huge Huishe river flowing on one side and the irrigation systems making everything green.

We were quyickly taken to the local guest house where we ordered again chapattis and drinks. I was shogin the FInnish flag to a group of locals who had gathered when suddenly from the guest room next to us a guy comes out and says "Päivää"! This was Mika. Then comes his firend, another Finn. I am still absolutely stunned to have run into two other Finns (from Oulu) in the extremely remote little tiny village of Hushe in the remote area of the Karakorams in Pakistan! Turns out the guys worked for the UN and were out border surveying. Ohhh boy, what a coincidence. In the end I was invited for a barbeque and some drinks for tomorrow in Skardu :-)

But it didn't end here. We still had about 120 km to Skarduy. Again, decision time. I knew that there would/should be a jeep to pick me up the following morning. But I wanted to get to my motel as soon as possible. So I hired a jeep for 50 euros that would take us the the last 5-6 hours to Skardu. That is one ride I will not forget easily. With me riding shotgun and Korbin on the flat bed it seemed the driver tried to defy all rules of physics by trying to break both the land speend and air speed records simultaneously. It didn't help that we were extremely tired after this marathon endurance of yesterday's 9 hours plus this day's 14 hours of non stop nwalking. Also it didn't help that he turned on the tape player and "music" that sounded like a man locked into a tin drum wailing loudly that he was indeed locked into a tin drum and that he was also hungry and had to pee.

But nevertheless, at around midnight after listening to the man locked into the drum for 5 hours we arrived and the driver wailed off.

I can say I was barely able to speak and took the key from the receptionists hand, waggled off and fell straight into bed. I dont even think I moved during the whole night. Break fast was wonderful and half a kitchen store later I was finally able to take an ice cold shower (they still haven't fixed it...) and take a look in the mirror. I was wondering what escaped convict was staring back at me and pondering if I should hit him or run when I recognised the tattoo on the arm and realised it was me. My pre-expedition weight was 84 kg, but I must have lost at the very minimum 15 kilos, especially because of the last two days endurance run.

The rest of the day I spent hunting for a SIM card, toothpaste and deodorant - the latter of which is an unknown concept here. Unless you count talcum powder as deodorant.

Other than that I am hungry, have just asked for a pre-dinner snack and am waiting for my duffel bags. Then I will try to get to Islamabad and there try to organize my international flights so I can get home.

Now dinner is calling so I need to go. WIll still post a few comments here and as soon as I can will post photos of the trip, so please come back still.

Thanks all!

20 July
Today had a very nice evening with the two Finnish and one Danish guy from the UN. The best part of the evening was of course the ice cold Carlsberg. Delicious... And then the rum, and....

21 July
Had a flight ticket from Skardu to Islamabad. Everything seemed ok. Even when they announced that the flight would be late it was no problem. Then they announced the flight had left from Islamabad to Skardu. Sounded excellent - perhaps it was finally time to get to ISB!
The flight came in but the wimpy pilot made an u turn in the air and returned to ISB! Apparently this is a pilot who doesn't really like to land in Skardu and is well known for it - my question is then why do they keep him on board...?
Well of course this u turn resulted in quite a lot of noise and action around the small terminal. I had hooked up with a guy from Holland who said he had two tickets on the next public bus to ISB but we had to hustle...so we did... It took a bit of pushing, joking and threating and we finally got our bags out and then managed to just get to the bus in time. There were indeed two empty seats on this real joy ride... We then managed to push our three duffel bags around so much in the back that people got a bit annoyed and then suddenly we had the whole back seat to ourselves. That was good - it gave a bit of a chance to stretch our long legs.

But I need to tell you - these public buses are not exactly luxury level - well they aren't exactly even economy level. Actually I dont even know what the level would be but it sure aint much to brag about.

But hey the company was nice, there was no loud music, the scenery was beautiful and most importantly I was on my way to ISB where there at some point soon would be an international flight home!

What I had not really taken into account was that this was really a NON stop bus. That meant the driver wasn't really keen on stopping for any reason - if you understand what I mean... I did however manage to sneak out for a pee a couple of times when there were the police stops where you have to get out and sign your name in a book if you look like a tourist...

The first few hours were ok.. Then the driver started playing some sort of tape... I dont know exactly how to describe it. There were no instruments, only one regular "rhytmic" clap and a lot of male voices. Remember the guy in the tin drum? This sounded like the guys who put him there, slowly marching around the drum going huuaaahhh houssem 'clap' over and over again. And this tape didn't seem to have an end.

When you start adding things up; hard seat, very little space, lots of dust, very very bumpy, the huaaah houssem group, the guy in the front vomiting out the window, the killer turns, the wild river down in the gorge to the left, the speed.....well I think you start to get the picture... It wasn't so much fun anymore. Of course there was the view but that naturally disappeared as it got dark... So after that the hours got very very long indeed....

But hey - we were on our way in the right direction, towards the place from where I could go home!

We finally arrived at the Islamabad bus station (which is an experience in itself) and I managed to get myself to the hotel (as you have without doubt realised by now). Then followed a quick shower, a huge hamburger after having been starving while choking on dust for the past 21 hours on the downhill roller coaster. And then off to the three airlines to see what could be done about my return tickets.

And believe it or not - after 2 hours at Qatar, 10 min at Emirates and 1 hour at Lufthansa I finally have the tickets home! I leave in the morning, then follows about 24 hours of travelling and that should finally mark the end of the journey!

So now I intend to catch some sleep and then head off to the airport.

I will post pictures here during the next week so please do some back and see what it really looked like up there in the wilderness! And thanks for participating in the journey!

kim