K2 without O2...

[redefined_cycles]

Thought someone might like this (they're slight more mental than many people on here which is hard to achieve)...

I always wonder how'd you film and photo at such dangerous altitudes... (I've been taking pics with my nose just in sunny West Yorkshire in cold weather... so find this sorta cinematography absolutely bonkers and leaves me confused)...

Enjoy

https://youtu.be/cvFt2Xcuois

2.2 thousand thumbs down to the vid aswell. What's that all about!

[jameso]

Have that on the Prime mountain films watchlist, hadn't got through all of them yet - will pop this on later.

'K2 - Siren of the Himalaya' was good, what I'd do to ride to the base of the Baltoro glacier and hike up around that corner. Watched the film about the 1963 US Everest expedition last night, that was amazing. Read about it a while back and seeing the route traced up the W ridge and the couloir in the film was

[whitestone]

Have been up that way once in 1986. We were heading for Gasherbrum IV and were walking in at the same time as the British K2 team that included Al Rouse and the Polish team with Wanda Ruckiewitc, both of whom died on K2 having summited.

Not sure what it's like now as the road (probably just gravel track) now goes as far as Askole whereas then that village was two or three days' walk from the road head. There were a few big side rivers to cross - quite frightening being hauled across in what was little more than an orange box suspended on wire! Others were wide and shallow enough that you could wade. across. Once on the Baltoro itself it's another couple of days up to Concordia, the distance isn't far but you are at around 5000m altitude so you just go slowly. From memory the unladen porters would get back to Askole in two days.

What you just can't comprehend until you've stood there is just how big these mountains are. The other thing I remember is the sound, everything is still down on the glacier and you hear this roaring sound - it's the tops of the peaks poking into the jet stream and you hear the wind being disrupted around them. On another occasion we flew into Skardu and you fly past Nanga Parbat and it towers above the flight path. When the pilot heard that Al Rouse and co were heading to K2 he diverted and flew round it for them!

[jameso]

Gasherbrum IV is stunning. Read The Shining Wall years back - should go back to that one day. How did it go?
I've been to Nepal twice and have some sense of how big the mountains really are, and how they look in that clear air and light, but somehow the Karakorum there looks taller, more dramatic still?

[whitestone]

Not that good. We were initially trying the west ridge which is the ridge to the left of the Shining Wall, incidentally we bumped into Robert Schauer on another trip out there, but it was lethally loose - the fill used on trail centre tracks is more solid Moved round to the south face and got to between 7200m & 7300m then one of the party got injured and we ran out of time. If you've read Greg Child's book of the second ascent then we were the British team mentioned in that.

[redefined_cycles]

Bob. Thanks for that insight. All sounds really humbling and thanks for explaining about the noise... which book would you suggest. I've read The Death Zone and it might be the stepping stone that propelled me to join this here forum (don't ask how that makes too much sense!)...

[jameso]

Ahem, it was The Shining Mountain I read... Boardman & Tasker. Started reading this and wasn't sure it was the same mountain / climbs etc. That you were out there for a route like that is amazing, sort of thing I day dream about (late starting, low talent/ability and high basic fear would be my reason for getting not far at all in that area!).

https://www.jottnar.com/blogs/news/shining-wall

[jameso]

Watched this last night, it's a brilliant film. 2 thoughts really - seems wrong/embarrassing what porters are paid compared to what westerners pay to climb. And the Baltoro glacier is a really long hike! I expected that, it's clear to see on a map, but this film follows the glacier trek in detail. Plus that glacier has the most stunning landscape I think I've ever seen hinted at on film.

I think I'd pay someone to look after my bike and then set off on foot with a local as a guide. I did that in Nepal, intended to hike solo but hired a guide, he spoke excellent English and felt I got to know so much more about the area and people through travelling with him.

[lune ranger]

Pakistani mountains really are amazing. So much more raw and awe inspiring than lots of India or Nepal imo.25years ago I did a full Himalayan bike tour. Pretty much the best part was going up the KKH and over the Khunjurab. Loads of side trips around Gilgit and Hunza. Very wild in all senses of the word. Probably pretty objectively dangerous these days. Nice little insurgent playground. Even back when I was there plenty of men folk were armed to the teeth.Didn’t trek out to K2 but kind of wished I did.
Read One & Two Halves to K2 James. The story of Alison Hargreaves kids going to see ‘mummies last mountain’ is very touching indeed.

[whitestone]

The porter rates and maximum loads (and the peak fees) are set out by the Pakistani government, Ministry of Tourism from memory. No idea what the situation is like now* but the porter work was very well paid by local standards and you'd get a lot turning up to get hired including kids who were obviously below the minimum age set out in the regs and older blokes who struggled to walk without a load. They were also paid for the days taken for the return trip which is why they'd get back to Askole in a day despite it being three days (or whatever) pay.

At the time Pakistan and India were at war over Kashmir and the Pakistani army were also using porters to ferry supplies up to the base of the Conway Saddle (turn right at Concordia away from K2 and go past the Gasherbrum base camp) which was allegedly the highest battleground in the world though according to our cook: "It's not real fighting - they just throw bullets at each other!". It was too high for helicopters to be able to carry supplies. It was also pre mobile days so you'd be following a telephone cable draped across rocks in the centre of the glacier.

* Given that the trek now starts three days further on I'd expect the day rate to have been raised to account for this.

Western mountaineers and tourists are rich beyond dreams compared to the locals but dropping large amounts of money into such societies is somewhat fraught with problems. It's why people like Edmund Hilary and latterly Doug Scott set up/worked with foundations to improve education and health - money/investment goes into the communities and the benefits are longer lasting.

It was a pretty dangerous place even back in the 1980s - not as bad as Baluchistan which is to the south and borders Afghanistan - in 1989(?) there was an inter-sect massacre in Gilgit which forced the government to install military checkpoints at regular intervals on the highways. You had to enter your name, nationality, destination, etc. into huge ledgers. Did it so often I memorised my passport number!

[jameso]

^ interesting, and yes the point about inflation / local value is understood. Less of a criticism of the climbing community, more as a westerner perspective thing I suppose. I paid a rate for a guide in Nepal and was told / discussed / thought the same things then. Interesting to see a little of the contrast between Nepal and Pakistan's tourism in that film.

Over the last year or so I've been talking to a chap I met through the bike trade who lives between London and Pakistan, he has family in Gilgit. He's not far from there at the moment. Has given me a few useful leads and tips for a bike trip there, so if it ever looks like a possibility (assuming I'd need 4 weeks or so) it's good to know there's some experience of the area here too.

lune ranger, that sounds like an incredible trip. Any pics online?

[fatbikephil]

I hadn't appreciated that your using someone else's fixed ropes for stuff like this which must be a bit dodgy as you've no way of knowing if the person ahead of you has just kicked his front points through said rope...... "I Jumared up K2 without Oxygen" seems considerably less of an achievement than Pete Boardman's and Joe Tasker's self supported climb of Changabang which they ended up doing pretty much Alpine style....

[whitestone]

Phil, fixed ropes are (sadly) part and parcel of the more popular big peaks. Sometimes it's intentional sometimes it's not - abseiling down, your rope gets jammed, if there's nothing difficult lower down you are just going to leave it. Having said that I wouldn't trust any rope more than a year old in those conditions. Firstly the wind frays things pretty quickly even if the rope is well tied down there still needs to be some slack in it to use it. Secondly the UV degradation at those altitudes is horrific - some of those ropes that when new had a breaking strain of 2000kg or so can almost be pulled apart by hand.

On easier ground the fixed ropes are more of a handline anyway - just stop you doing something silly, which extremely easy to do in a state of hypoxia.

Shaf, here's a list of good mountaineering reads, more public oriented than simply towards climbers.

Thin Air by Greg Child
Savage Arena by Joe Tasker
K2 -Savage Mountain, Savage Summer by John Barry
K2 - Triumph and Tragedy by Jim Curran
Touching the Void by Joe Simpson

For humour search out One Man's Mountains by Tom Patey.

[redefined_cycles]

^ interesting, and yes the point about inflation / local value is understood. Less of a criticism of the climbing community, more as a westerner perspective thing I suppose. I paid a rate for a guide in Nepal and was told / discussed / thought the same things then. Interesting to see a little of the contrast between Nepal and Pakistan's tourism in that film.

Over the last year or so I've been talking to a chap I met through the bike trade who lives between London and Pakistan, he has family in Gilgit. He's not far from there at the moment. Has given me a few useful leads and tips for a bike trip there, so if it ever looks like a possibility (assuming I'd need 4 weeks or so) it's good to know there's some experience of the area here too.

lune ranger, that sounds like an incredible trip. Any pics online?

James... if you look me up on Strava, I believe there's some pakistani chaps that I'm following or they're following me. I think I got latched onto them after seeing they'd done some silly riding towards the mountainside regions. Might be an idea to follow some folks like that to get a feel for what's about. For sure I've heard (from my Kashmiri school mates... so brits but with roots back in pakistani/kashmir side) that Kashmir is some of the most breathtaking scenery ever. I can only imagine what these peaks look like

[Dave Barter]

My mate used to climb with Joe Simpson, he stated that the guy was a liability and nobody in the community was surprised when it happened...

I find Reinhold Messner to be the most inspiring climber ever and his book on all the 8000m peaks without oxygen is both beautiful and inspiring.

[lune ranger]

lune ranger, that sounds like an incredible trip. Any pics online?

Nothing online. The trip was 1999-2000 which pre dates my having a digital camera of any sort by about 17 years! In fact I barely took any photos by modern standards - probably 1 roll
Of film a month as was my standard.
The trip was unforgettably great.
Starting in Kathmandu over the Tribhuvan highway, back up to Pokhara then carried my bike round the Annapurna circuit trek.
West to India to Rishikesh and Manali. Then over the Tanglang La to Leh.
Then Leh to Srinagar, which at that time was a pretty dodgy proposition due to tensions in Kashmir.
I then went into Pakistan by going south to Amritsar and Lahore.
Then up the KKH and over the Khunjerab to Kashgar in China. The plan was to go by bike to Lhasa but that wasn’t possible so I traveled by bus. I then rode back to Kathmandu via the north Everest base camp which you can essentially ride to.
vaguely exciting all in all.

[jameso]

I hadn't appreciated that your using someone else's fixed ropes for stuff like this which must be a bit dodgy as you've no way of knowing if the person ahead of you has just kicked his front points through said rope...... "I Jumared up K2 without Oxygen" seems considerably less of an achievement than Pete Boardman's and Joe Tasker's self supported climb of Changabang which they ended up doing pretty much Alpine style....

I watched another really good film last night, for the second time - The Art of Freedom, about the pioneering Polish climbers. Reinhold Messner sums all that up well towards the end, talking about mountain tourists vs climbers.

Looking up Messner's book now Dave.

Shafiq, thanks, the moment I believe a trip there is a possibility I will be in contact

[jameso]

Nothing online. The trip was 1999-2000 which pre dates my having a digital camera of any sort by about 17 years! In fact I barely took any photos by modern standards - probably 1 roll
Of film a month as was my standard.
The trip was unforgettably great.
Starting in Kathmandu over the Tribhuvan highway, back up to Pokhara then carried my bike round the Annapurna circuit trek.
West to India to Rishikesh and Manali. Then over the Tanglang La to Leh.
Then Leh to Srinagar, which at that time was a pretty dodgy proposition due to tensions in Kashmir.
I then went into Pakistan by going south to Amritsar and Lahore.
Then up the KKH and over the Khunjerab to Kashgar in China. The plan was to go by bike to Lhasa but that wasn’t possible so I traveled by bus. I then rode back to Kathmandu via the north Everest base camp which you can essentially ride to.
vaguely exciting all in all.

A dream ride, really.

[shutuplegs]

The early books of Bill Tilman describe his trips to the Himalaya (and other ranges) in the early days. Quality stuff and worth a read if you are interested. His book about his time in WW2 fighting with the Italian resistance in the Dolomites is my highlight.

I’ve nearly finished all his climbing/mountaineering books and eyeing up the sailing ones...

[fatbikephil]

Nanga Parbat pilgrimage is a good read - Herman Buhls life story with some excellent bivvy tips!

[redefined_cycles]

I hadn't appreciated that your using someone else's fixed ropes for stuff like this which must be a bit dodgy as you've no way of knowing if the person ahead of you has just kicked his front points through said rope...... "I Jumared up K2 without Oxygen" seems considerably less of an achievement than Pete Boardman's and Joe Tasker's self supported climb of Changabang which they ended up doing pretty much Alpine style....

I watched another really good film last night, for the second time - The Art of Freedom, about the pioneering Polish climbers. Reinhold Messner sums all that up well towards the end, talking about mountain tourists vs climbers.

Looking up Messner's book now Dave.

Shafiq, thanks, the moment I believe a trip there is a possibility I will be in contact

No worries James... In the meanwhile I shall and try and mark a few of the chaps that I think might be most fruitful to work with. Seems like its a cycling club that does some crazy routes/walks...

[FLV]

Nothing online. The trip was 1999-2000 which pre dates my having a digital camera of any sort by about 17 years! In fact I barely took any photos by modern standards - probably 1 roll
Of film a month as was my standard.
The trip was unforgettably great.
Starting in Kathmandu over the Tribhuvan highway, back up to Pokhara then carried my bike round the Annapurna circuit trek.
West to India to Rishikesh and Manali. Then over the Tanglang La to Leh.
Then Leh to Srinagar, which at that time was a pretty dodgy proposition due to tensions in Kashmir.
I then went into Pakistan by going south to Amritsar and Lahore.
Then up the KKH and over the Khunjerab to Kashgar in China. The plan was to go by bike to Lhasa but that wasn’t possible so I traveled by bus. I then rode back to Kathmandu via the north Everest base camp which you can essentially ride to.
vaguely exciting all in all.

A dream ride, really.

Sounds superb. I once planned something a bit like that. I made it to Manali by bus, cycled the ML highway with a few side missions including a jaunt over the Khardung La and had hoped to, as a minimum, come back via Srinagar but got caught up in the cloud burst disaster. Wow, back in 2010... long time ago.!

I regret not being able to go further. You trip sound ace

[lune ranger]

Nice.
Shame you couldn’t do more. I saw today that Manali-Leh is now only taking 11hrs on the bus!
The road must be in lot better shape and the buses... wonder if they’re pressurised

[redefined_cycles]

https://www.ospreyeurope.com/osprey-blo ... ce=ometria

Looks like the first winter attempt has been completed (accomplished) without death. Well done that team (and osprey)... but mad mind you...

[Bearlegged]

Amazing what a team of Nepalese can achieve when they don't have to wait around for a white guy with a complicated relationship to his father.

https://mobile.twitter.com/JulianSayare ... 7442263045