K2 – Avalanches and tennis

At last we’ve been granted a window of fair weather and have resumed line fixing and camp establishing.  While the rest of the team push up to Camp 2 today, I’m in Base Camp preparing to push up tomorrow. Our program and plan is to haul 200 meters of rope and a tent to the high point of the line, ‘tag’ the altitude, drop the load, assist with the fixing and rapidly descend to Base Camp again.  After that my next push up will be up to Camp 3 (at approx 7300m), I will then sleep at Camp 2.  This is the concept of climb high, sleep low, recovering lower down in the thicker air.  For me, this up and down process, although fatiguing because of the distance and time, is less physically detrimental for me than camping high up, which is what the rest of the team are doing.  Everyone acclimatises differently.  Tomorrow should be a 10 hour round trip – enshallah!  Once I’m acclimatised to Camp 2, the next climb’s time – up and down – should only be 2/3rds of that – enshallah again.

Yesterday was one of the most outstanding alpine days of my life.  It was sloughing and shedding time!  Off all the surrounding slopes, avalanches dropped like over ripe litches in December.  Throughout the day I was on standby with my camera, ready to roll and I picked off the prize fruit. One monster avalanche started at about 7500m altitude, hundreds of tons of ice and snow lost gravity, exploding into a bellowing cloud that advanced aggressively towards our camp.  The cook staff in the background became very nervous and their voices grew louder as a 300 meter wide and high plume of grey and white ice crystals obliterated everything within its reach.

Like storm surf battering the shore or a dark swarm of bees sweeping across the plain, avalanches are an absolutely spectacular display of Mother Nature’s power and yesterday was the day.  I’m so stoked to have the footage in the can.

My day ended with something completely different – a classic game of tennis – the men’s Wimbledon final which I listened to on BBC World.  Tucked into my 40-degree-below bag, I went through a flask full of tea and the only bummer was that Roddick lost.

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Guided treks & expeditions with Sean: Mt Kilimanjaro, Mt Everest Base Camp, Mt Aconcagua, Mt Elbrus and Mt Kenya.  www.seanwisedale.com / katherine@seanwisedale.com

Tags: Alpine, Avalanches, Filming, K2, Sean Wisedale