K2 Departure Day

This will be the last blog before Sean leaves for K2 tomorrow. From here on he’ll be keeping us updated from the field.

Expedition Checklist

Sean will be away from home for 10 weeks on this expedition which is more or less how long it takes to climb an 8611m peak like K2. It takes this much time because of a two week walk into base camp; then there’s continuous up and down climbing in order to acclimatise by climbing high incrementally and sleeping low. He’ll be simultaneously stocking the camps for the big push to the summit based on a good weather forecast.

Right now we’re 

in the engine room busy packing. Sean’s got all his gear laid out. Technical gear includes all sorts of hard and soft stuff like bulky down suits for protection at -40C and sharpened crampons for the steep icy slopes. Sean’s spent an hour sharpening his ice-axes and crampons so that they bite into the ice. He’s also attached anti-balling plates to the bottom of his crampons. These plates prevent balls of snow collecting on the bottom of his boots making them heavy and the surface of the snow slippery. He’s duct taped pads of high density foam to the top of his ice-axes so that when he’s plodding up the slopes, his hands don’t freeze on the steel. Sean’s taking 3 Nalgene water bottles and a pee bottle which saves having to climb out of the tent in the middle of the night in those freezing temperatures. His boots weigh 1.7 kgs and are the finest and lightest pair you can buy – only ten grand a pair! Sean’s full gear list will be available soon.

Qatar Airlines have allowed an additional 10kgs of excess baggage which means cramming all the climbing gear plus food, medical kit ‘et alles’ into one big tog bag and a mini barrel, making sure it doesn’t exceed 30 kgs or he’ll need to take a day pack of cash to pay for it.

High Altitude Boots

On the filming side,

Sean’s taking two High Definition video cameras with him – one with over 100 hours of recording time on the hard drive. His master camera is a Sony Z1 which uses tape. As usual, he’ll be sleeping with his camera batteries to keep them warm so that they last. Lucky batteries! Sean’s not taking his heavy Betacam ‘Chubby’ along which he took up Everest. Chubby is bummed!

Globalcom Satellite have sponsored half of Sean’s Iridium satellite phone airtime – thanks to Samantha Scott-Stuckler and David Lipton. Along with his satellite phone, Sean has an external hard drive and an MP3 player that’s loaded with Metallica, ACDC and a clatter of Rammstein – mellow tunes he says! There’s also a bit of Pink Floyd, Sting, Eagles etc and definitely no Britney.

Expedition Tucker

For energy and nutrition above base camp, there’s a mini barrel full of

all sorts of boring stuff: cup-a-snack soup, tuna, oxo and cheese spread, rooibos, energy bars, non-refrigerated margarine, sparkles, smash, cous-cous, nuts, 2-minute noodles (Sean calls them 20 minute noodles because they take so long to cook at altitude). The luxuries are whole-nut chocolate, Tex bars, pine nuts, chockits biscuits and biltong. (Thanks to Allie Peters, Sean was given 2kgs of the finest tasting kudu biltong). And for those long, hard, icy nights – there’s even a teeny bottle of Chateau Libertas.

In the medical kit, there’s rehydrate, Leuko sports tape – thanks to Clayton and Yogan of BSN Medical, McNabs energy tabs, valoid suppositories for nausea, Imodium for diarrhoea, tea tree oil as a disinfectant and other bits and bobs.

Sean’s eyewear is sponsored by Oakley and includes the coolest sunglasses and glacier goggles. Thanks to Matthew Quinn for these. Sean’s training gear is sponsored by Adidas – thanks to Hilary Maclear.

Sean’s last workout session was on Sunday when we entered the Discovery Men’s Health 23km surfski race from Scottburgh to Winklespruit on the South Coast. We came second in the mixed doubles category and Gary ‘inadvertently’ Albers forced Sean to down a beer out of the late George Plowman’s prosthetic leg for not winning!

Right now Sean is super excited and really looking forward to another great mountain adventure. Thanks for all for your support and we hope you’ll enjoy the rest of blog.

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Tags: Climbing gear, K2, Sean Wisedale, Seven Summits, Trekking