K2 2010 Summit Push in C2!

August 3, 2010
From stu in the usa office

Fabrizio and Meagan are up in C2 and ready to move to C3 tomorrow! Fabrizio called in earlier to let us know that the conditions had been extremely warm and that stopping to hydrate had been crucial for them today. Due to the warm temps they had a lot of rockfall. After a day without mishap they are now happily above the rockfall zone and have safer climbing ahead to the Shoulder with ther route already in place. Fabrzio said that there is essentially no snow left on the lower route after the warm temps and sun. Just ice and rock at this point. IN some measure this bodes well for the upper part of the mountain where the snow was too deep the first time around. We’ll hope they find more consolidated snow from the shoulder on and will know shortly!

Some 14 climbers are on the Cesen route and represent a very strong summit group. We don’t know of the movement on the Abruzzi but we do know that a number of teams over there are hoping for a summit day on the 6th also. The teams on the Cesen have 500m of rope already stashed at the shoulder and at this point plan to operate independently of the Abruzzi teams. With stocked camps, the route set to the shoulder and calm winds ahead, this may be the best opportunity for summits on K2 this summer.

Fabrizio has left a dispatch from C2 with all the latest…enjoy!



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