The K2 Club

27/12/2021

K2 and Broad Peak at night ❤

18/04/2021

Mobile tower installed at Concordia near K2, Broad Peak, G1 and G2 amongst many other peaks. This will help promote mountaineering and adventure sports in the region.

18/03/2021

Beat the COVID-19 blues and book your your K2 basecamp adventure with us this year.

Contact us to request detailed itinerary. We offer discounts for large groups. Your deposit and fee will be available to use in future in case of any COVID-19 restrictions.

18/03/2021

27/02/2021

The short videos shows what is it like to do K2 basecamp trek. It is a tough trek and you need to prepare yourself well before the trek. You should have some experience of trekking and camping. Temperature goes down to -15/-20 some nights so you must have the right gear.

Let us know if you have any questions. Contact us to book your place for K2 bascamp trek (June to October 2021).

21/02/2021

K2 Basecamp Trek

14/02/2021

Latest update on K2 missing climbers from Vanessa O'brien: Army is keeping the basecamp open.

13/02/2021

In the mountain they belonged, In the mountain they have rested

Credit:

13/02/2021

Going down the chimney on K2 mountain, on the way back to basecamp from camp 2

Video:

11/02/2021

First descent of K2 on Skis by Andrzej Bargiel in 2018.

Video credit: Redbull

11/02/2021

K2 mountain through the lens of Atanas. You will be missed Atanas

Pc:

09/02/2021

72-hour K2 Search continues despite worsening weather

SKARDU (PR): The families of three missing climbers from Iceland, Chile and Pakistan made the difficult decision to proceed with their rescue mission after 72 gruelling hours of nonstop intensive search-and-rescue efforts came to a halt due to bad weather, hoping that they can be resumed in the shortest possible timeframe. Jon Snorri, Ali Sadpara and Juan Pablo Mohr had joined forces to make a summit bid on K2 – the last eight-thousand-meter peak unclimbed in winter until a team of 10 Nepali summited earlier this year. Rao Ahmad, Ali Sadpara’s long-time friend and Sajid Sadpara, Ali Sadpara’s son, along with British-American climber, Vanessa O’Brien, who also serves as Pakistan’s Goodwill Ambassador and summited K2 with Jon Snorri, have formed a virtual base camp to ensure a thorough search-and-rescue effort.

We would like to thank everyone who expressed interest in Jon, Ali and JP’s climb, and to those who expressed concern for their wellbeing, those who offered to help (especially Alex Gavan) and those who prayed for their safety and offered ideas and thoughts on the use of drones and search locations. We heard you and appreciate the care, concern and compassion you showed.

There are reasons why K2 in winter had not been climbed before, and those reasons made a search-and-rescue mission almost impossible. The freezing temperatures and wind chill, averaging -50 degrees Celsius, along with exhausted climbers, created a challenge, but everyone did what they could.

At our virtual base camp, we were fortunate to receive Hi-Res Satellite SAR imagery from ICEYE, a provider of persistent monitoring with radar-satellite imaging. SAT imagery has been used in past rescue operations, but no one has every quite used SAR imagery like this before. ICEYE’s slogan, “every square meter, every hour” gave us the perfect visual acuity to view areas inaccessible to helicopters because of harsh winter conditions and excessive winds. This is the future of search-and-rescue technology, and we are extremely grateful to Daniel Leeb, the Founding Partner & Mission Director at the Iceland Space Agency, for his incredible leadership and assistance, as well as the extraordinary teams at Airbus and E-GEOS.

We supplemented this data with input from other technological devices the climbers carried – Garmin, Thuraya, Inmarsat – together with interviews from witnesses, to create a timeframe of the climbers’ locations during their summit bid. We are grateful for the six helicopter flights by the Pakistan Army pilots, who pushed the upper limits during each of these search flights. Many thanks, too, to Canadian-filmmaker Elia Saikaly for capturing imagery during these search-and-rescue flights, and to Chhang Dawa Sherpa for providing his expertise. (Ret) Lt Col. Hassan bin Aftab, Director of Operations at Pakistan Analytica, coordinated overall logistics for the search-and-rescue attempts and served as the point person for our families.

None of this would have been possible without the support and assistance of the Chief of General Staff and the Pakistan Army. We are very grateful to ISPR, the Chief of Defence of Iceland, and the Foreign Ministers of Iceland, Pakistan and Chile. Our respective Ambassadors were extremely generous with their time, and we are appreciative of their assistance. Ashgar Porik, of Jasmine Tours, could not have been more helpful, working 24x7 to help Jon and Ali’s expedition. We had superb support on the ground from our high-altitude porters – Imtiaz and Akbar, Fazal Ali and Jalal. They worked extremely hard, never gave up and continued searching, even this morning.

Finally, we’d like to thank our loved-one’s sponsors. Sponsors are critical to the success of any mountaineering expedition and taking risks on the people who matter and deserve to be rewarded, is critical. All of these sponsors have led by example - we applaud these brands and ask for your patronage.

For Ali, the nation of Pakistan is your biggest support followed the Canadian High Commissioner to Pakistan; Wendy Gilmore, who recognized how gifted Ali was and through her gestures and friendship provided him tremendous support. HC Gilmore demonstrated what Simone Moro said in words, “Ali Sadpara is to Pakistan what Tenzing Norgay was to Nepal.” We are so grateful that you supported Ali, and we want you to know how much he appreciated it.

For Jon, the nation of Iceland will always remember the national anthem you sang on K2 and it awaits an encore!

For JP, we are incredibly lucky to have this list below. You made his dreams come true, and we are forever grateful to you for that.

Via: Pamir Times

03/02/2021

Snorri and Sadpara team are on C2 right now just under the House's Chimney. They left basecamp today at 4am.

They are aiming for the summit on the 5th February , Friday at noon PKT.

They will leave camp 2 tomorrow morning at 8am for camp 3 and rest there tomorrow before the summit push. Summit push will start at 9pm PKT and will take app. 16 hours to get to the summit.

The same day 4th of January we start our summit push at 21.00 PKT and are aiming it will take us 15 to 16 hours to get on the summit.

24/01/2021

Muhammad Ali Sadpara, Sajid Sadpara and John Snorri will attemp summit this evening. Good luck to the whole team❤❤

24/01/2021

What a beautiful video from team Nepal on K2 summit. Also what a wonderful display of team spirit on a mountain that has been known historically for bringing out the best and "worst" in people.

Mick Conefrey, an author, wrote in his book "K2 seems to bring out the best—and the worst—in people. Expeditions are full of acrimonious fallings out and grievances nursed for a lifetime"

Team Nepal definitely proved Conefrey wrong

Video credit:

18/01/2021

Nims Dai did it again! He is unbelievable!!!

K2 winter without supplementary oxygen and at an unbelievable speed. He leaves us speechless.

K2 winter was a beast of a challenge. I firmly believe that a feat of such caliber is never possible if you don’t have a purpose or if it is only aimed for your own self glory.

I have always known what my mind and body are capable off. To lay it out straight, on my previous evolutions I had been carrying oxygen from the higher camps, 8000m and above in some cases, but I was personally satisfied with my work efficiency up to 8000m. It was my choice and I had my own reasons and ethos.

It was a tough call this time inorder to make that decision whether to climb with or without supplementary oxygen (O2). Due to the weather conditions and time frame, I hadn’t acclimatised adequately. I was only able to sleep as high as Camp 2 (6,600m). Ideally climbers need to sleep OR at least touch Camp 4 before heading for a summit push. Lack of acclimatisation, developed frost bite from the first rotation and slowing down other team members, risking everyone’s safety, were the key uncertainties associated.

The safety of my team is and always have been my top priority above all. I have lead 20 successful expeditions so far and all my team members have returned home the exact way that they had left home i.e. without loosing any fingers or toes.

I took a calculated risk this time and I pressed on without supplementary O2. My self confidence, knowing my body’s strength, capability and my experience from climbing the 14 x 8000ers enabled me to keep up with the rest of the team members and yet lead.

JOB DONE ! K2 WINTER WITH NO SUPPLEMENTARY OXYGEN !

There are many cases, where climbers have claimed no O2 summits but followed our trail that we blazed and used the ropes and lines that we had fixed. Some of which are widely known within the inner climbing community. What is classified as fair means?
Personally, it had never been a major deal for me and it still isn’t. Coming from a United Kingdom’s special forces background, you have been and done all sorts but we don’t make a big fuss about everything. It is a personal choice. Nature and the mountains are for everyone. You make your own call ! 🙏🏼🙌🏼

17/01/2021

Great news from team Iceland and Pakistan.

Renowned adventure film maker Elia Saikaly along with Pasang Kaji Sherpa are in Skardu right now to film Sadparas and Snorri's journey on this K2 winter expedition.

Their goal is to capture this 3 members team's journey, support local contingent, promote Pakistan ❤❤❤ ( read this again 😍😍😍) and celebrate the team's journey to K2 summit. 2 Pakistani climbers Fazal and Jalal will also join them.

17/01/2021

Great news from team Iceland and Pakistan.

Renowned adventure film maker Elia Saikaly along with Pasang Kaji Sherpa are in Skardu right now to film Sadparas and Snorri's journey on this K2 winter expedition.

Their goal is to capture this 3 members team's journey, support local contingent, promote Pakistan ❤❤❤ ( read this again 😍😍😍) and celebrate the teams journey to K2 summit. 2 Pakistani Fazal and Jalal will join them.

17/01/2021

General Javed and his team from Pakistan army met the Nepalese climbers to congratulate them on the first ascent of K2 in winters.

pc: unknown
# #

17/01/2021

This victory truly belongs to the sherpas from Nepal. They work so hard and risk their lives to make climbers dreams come true and they rarely get the limelight. Well done to the Nepali brothers and as Don Bowie rightly said:

The thing I am most proud of is that these guys have guided so many people to summits, rescued and helped many others along the way... but now they get the limelight -front and center as they should- not as guides in the background of a client's photo, not setting the route or fixing rope for other people to climb on, not carrying other people's gear or setting up tents or cooking food for others like they do so often. These guys did it for themselves -for Nepal- and there was nobody else in sight to steal the show. They did it their way. Well done boys.

Repost:
Pc:

Mingma G
Nirmal Purja
Chhang Dawa Sherpa
Seven Summit Treks

17/01/2021

Good luck to Muhammad Ali Sadpara, Sajid Sadpara who are with John Snorri on K2 mountain right now. All eyes are now on this team in Pakistan to see them achieve their goal.

Team's location at 2am on 17th January: Basecamp (not sure why they came back to basecamp from camp 3).

Pc: Rao Ahmed

16/01/2021

Abruzzi, the most popular climbing route (click on each picture to read the details)

* Basecamp & ABC
* House Chimney
* The Black Pyramid
* K2 Bottleneck at 8350m:
* The Snowfield, K2 summit:

16/01/2021

Towards the Snowfield, K2 summit

A further 91m steep and wind packed snow to reach the final summit ridge. Several climbers were swept off this snow helmet by strong winds.

Pc: Tommy Heinrich

16/01/2021

K2 Bottleneck at 8350m

The Bottleneck is a narrow couloir overhung by seracs. The climbers have to traverse about 100m exposed to the seracs to pass it. This is the most dangerous part of the route and 13 out of 14 fatalities on K2 have happened near the Bottleneck

Video: Dave Watson

16/01/2021

Latest update from K2 winter expedition:

A group of sherpas from SST, Nims Dai's and Mingma G are 200m from summit and just crossed the bottoe neck.

History is about to be made!

Pc:

09/01/2021

K2 Winter update:

Most teams are at basecamp due to extreme weather conditions. There had been hurricane force wind of upto 120 km/hr.

Nims Dai and his team are planning to leave for Camp II today to check their tents and equipment they left their for their summit cycle. It was reported that there tents are not fully secured and they are expecting some damage.

Pc:

09/01/2021

Questing under the ice caves, deep under the Plaine Morte glacier, we discovered an intricate network of caverns, tunnels and bottomless cravesses.

Pc: .radcliffe

09/01/2021

K2 Winter Expedition latest:

All teams are at basecamp at 5200m elevation due to bad weather. Teams will start moving up as soon as weather gets better

Pc:

07/01/2021

Somewhere in Himalaya

Pc:

07/01/2021

This bright solar halo named "Icebow" is a circle of light produced by light interacting with ice crystals suspended in atmosphere.
In short, one of those magical moments when time seems to stop.

Pc:

04/01/2021

Crevasse hopping at 20,000 ft on Khumbu Icefall

Khumbu icefall Nepal

Pc:

04/01/2021

Khumbu icefall Nepal

Pc:

03/01/2021

3rd Jan 2021, K2 winter expedition 2021 update

John Snorri, Ali and Sajid are heading towards Camp 2 and plan to sleep there overnight.

Pc: .snorri

02/01/2021

02/01/2021

2nd Jan 2021, K2 winter expedition 2021 update

Seven Summits Trek team has sent sherpas to set route to Camp4. Summit plan scheduled for after 10th January.

Pc:

02/01/2021

2nd Jan 2021, K2 winter expedition 2021 update

Elite Expedition team is currently waiting at K2 basecamp waiting for the right weather window

Pc:

02/01/2021