Saturday, September 12, 2009

K2 Video: 360 degree from the Shoulder


I took this video at 5am on the shoulder of K2 on August 07, 2009, it shows sunrise over most of the Karakoram, including Masherbrum, Chogolisa, Broad Peak, the Masherbrum group, and China. It also shows the curve of the Earth. My dilemma that morning of moving up given the 10 people that were above me (I left C4 last as I was sure I was fast enough to leave with sunrise and summit early enough to return to C2 or BC the same day) went away rapidly as I climbed high and realized that it was the deep snow that was preventing everybody from moving faster. I had been up past the Bottleneck and Traverse before - in 2000 - and knew the best thing given conditions was to get down to BC as quickly as possible. I was back in base camp by 7pm that day, I left the Shoulder at 11am.