Polish K2 team at Concordia

Three winter expeditions to eight-thousanders, three different phases. In Pakistan, the Polish team led by Krzysztof Wielicki today reached Concordia after trekking over the Baltoro Glacier and is expected on Tuesday to pitch their tents in the base camp at the foot of K2, the last remaining unclimbed eight-thousander in winter. Already six days ago, the Spaniard Alex Txikon, the Pakistani Muhammad Ali “Sadpara” and their Nepalese Sherpa team had reached the base camp on the south side of Mount Everest. They are fixing a route through the Khumbu Icefall. Like last year, Alex participates in the work (as the video below shows).

How high were Revol and Mackiewicz?

The latest information on the winter expedition on Nanga Parbat is not yet confirmed. The website “russianclimb.com” tweeted yesterday, the Pole Tomek Mackiewicz and the Frenchwoman Elisabeth Revol had already reached Camp 3 at 7,300 meters on the so-called “Messner route”. According to russianclimb, the information comes from an employee of the Pakistani agency that organized the expedition for the two mountaineers from the west.

Strong winds

Nanga Parbat

Tomek’s wife could not confirm this information to me. She had learned on Friday that Mackiewicz and Revol had ascended to an altitude of 6,600 meters and then returned to the base camp. There they wanted to wait until the strong winds calm down in a few days. That would coincide with the current weather forecast for Nanga Parbat. It predicted for today on the 8125-meter-high summit wind speeds of 80 to 90 km/h, for the next three days even from 100 to 135 km/h. The Polish-French duo had reached the base camp on the Diamir side of the mountain already before Christmas.