K2 – The trek begins

It’s been a fantastic 2 days from Skardu to Ghula.  We left Skardu in jeeps and took the road to Askole. The jeep track must be the dodgiest road on earth – there are constant land slides as the road is cut out of the faces of super loose and steep slopes that follow a glacial river.  They use short-wheel based land cruisers here – it would be impossible to get through without them  It took us 8 hours to get to Askole – everyone and the baggage arrived safely.  This was not the case for a pair of Germans from another expedition unfortunately.  They weren’t actually in the vehicle when the incident happened – a rock that was put under the wheel, acting as a handbrake failed and the vehicle rolled backwards over the edge and 50 meters into the river.

Skardu (Sean)

I’m amongst Mt Everest veterans – they are mature and likeable people – we’ve had a lot of good laughs.  I’ve had a few interesting conversations with some of the others team members about girls, surf, mountains, surf and girls.  The British crew with their refined language are very amusing and I sometimes find it difficult to communicate with them because mine is poor in comparison. 

Fabrizio is our leader and is a lot of fun – he dared anyone to sniff a toothpick width, one foot line of coffee and promised to carry 20 kgs of their gear up to camp 1 if they did.  Anything for entertainment!  It was all a big laugh and no-one lacked the sense to try it.  Although, I must admit I thought about it and I even sampled a sniff – we all had a good laugh about how long it would be before someone was hooked and would be cursing at base camp because we were out of coffee.

We’ve been having conversations about K2 but because everyone knows it’s a one-day-at-a-time process, we don’t project into the future too much.  Only time will tell and only once we are at base camp will we begin to strategize and plan specifics.

There is still no news on the oxygen.  Eysh!

Our trek in today was great – it was our first day of trekking and good to stretch the legs.  If you go onto Google Earth and type in K2, it will lead you onto the Baltoro Glacier, which is where we are headed.  The local people mine gems stones out of the cliff and yesterday I was eyeing a sexy chunk of aquamarine the size of my thumb – the owner wanted $500 – not this time I’m afraid mate.  We trekked for 5 ½ hrs today and are in camp Ghula at 3100 meters.  It’s dinner time now at 7pm.

One for the canoeists (Sean)

Tags: Baltoro Glacier, coffee, K2, oxygen, Sean Wisedale, Trekking