Bad weather failed to stop expedition to K2

Participants of the international expedition to K2 continued their ascend to Chogori, despite of bad weather, Kazakhstan alpinist Maksut Zhumayev told Tengrinews.kz. “We decided to stick to the previous plan. We went from the first camp to the second, but got into a deep snow again. We spent long time getting out of it, but managed to reach the height of 6,100 meters. There is not much left to go to the second camp, but we have no energy left to do this today. We can say we fulfilled the minimum program today,” Zhumayev said. Today, July 20, four alpinists including Maksut Zhumayev, Vassiliy Pivtsov, Darek Zaluski and Tommy Heinrich will spend a night at this height, and will go to the second camp tomorrow to start working on the route to the third camp to be set at 7,100-7,400 meters. Gerlinda Kaltenbrunner and Ralf Dujmovits will join us later. “We feel well. We have a little shortness of breath, but the rest is fine. The weather is getting worse. The sky above us is cloudy right now.” We hope for at least three days without snow. This is like in a joke: “God laughed a lot when read a forecast for tomorrow”. But we hope that we will be able to work. Of course, if a strong storm starts we will have to go back to the base camp for rest,” Kazakhstan alpinist added. International expedition to K2 started on June 16 and has been lasting for over a month already. The alpinist is very careful about naming any exact dates of completion of the ascent. “It is no good to give any forecasts about getting to the top right now. But anyway… This is our third advancement to Chogori. There will be another one. And after that we may be ready to get to the top. Many things may affect this: condition of the route and the participants, as well as weather forecasts. Not everything turns out the way we want it to, but we will keep trying,” the sportsman shared. The expedition is planning to spend 3-4 days at the mount and set the third camp at 7,100-7,400 meters. Chogori is located in Karakorum mountain system in Kashmir province at the territory of Pakistan. Its height is 8,611 meters.