Broad Peak Base Camp in deep snow

Summer in the Karakorum? At the moment it feels more like winter, at least in terms of precipitation. For days Mother Holle has been shaking out her mattress over Pakistan’s highest mountains. “Snowfall all day long”, writes Dominik Müller, head and expedition leader of the German operator Amical alpin at the foot of the eight-thousander Broad Peak. “Our base camp is slowly turning into a winter landscape. Avalanches barrel down from the slopes every hour!” The Austrian expedition leader Lukas Furtenbach, from Broad Peak too, takes the same lime: “Tough weather conditions this year”. The situation on the other eight-thousanders in Pakistan is not different. No matter if from the neighbouring K 2, Gasherbrum I and II or Nanga Parbat – the same messages everywhere: Lots of snow, high avalanche risk.

Mike Horn: “Very dangerous”

South African adventurer Mike Horn threw in the towel on Nanga Parbat last weekend.  “It has been snowing at Base Camp for 12 days now and above 7000m there is a lot of snow. This makes the mountain very dangerous,” the 51-year-old wrote on Instagram, adding that the situation was to worsen since the weather forecast was also bad for the next days: “The mountain will stay here so we can always come back to amazing Pakistan.” Mike had been one of the first climbers to arrive in Nanga Parbat Base Camp in early June.

Even more snow

Meteorologists expect snowfall to continue until Thursday inclusive, so the avalanche risk is likely to increase further. An overhasty start onto the mountain before the fresh snow has settled could be fatal. Climbers therefore need patience – and a good entertainment program in the base camp.

K 2 Base Camp

Trouble’s brewing in the base camps on K 2 and the neighboring eight-thousander Broad Peak. “I got surprised to see climbers here without ropes.”, writes Mingma Gyalje Sherpa, head of the Nepalese expedition operator Dreamers Destination from the base camp at the foot of K 2, the second highest mountain on earth. Only on the normal route via the Abruzzi spur, three teams are climbing without ropes, says the 31-year-old Nepalese: “If this is how climbers come on K 2, then we can expect (the events of the) year 2008 again on K 2.” At that time eleven climbers from seven nations had died in a true mass summit push on the 8,611-meter-high mountain.

Mingma has agreed with the Austrian expedition organizer Lukas Furtenbach that Dreamers Destination will fix the ropes on the Abruzzi route on K 2 while Furtenbach Adventures will do the same on the normal route on the 8,051-meter-high Broad Peak and later make mutual use of the ropes. Also Furtenbach is hopping mad that other teams neither participate in the work to secure the route nor in the costs.

“Unfair and fraud”

Broad Peak

“I think, it is, to say the least, absolutely unacceptable to arrive unprepared after the big commercial teams, to use their fixed ropes and to be not fair enough to contribute,” Lukas writes to me. “Most of these teams/climbers should have to leave without fixed ropes, because they are not able to climb the mountain in Alpine style. This is parasitism. It is unfair and fraud.” His Pakistani liaison officer spoke to the officers of the other teams about the problem, but without success, writes Lukas. The 39-year-old threatens to publicly name those teams if they refuse until last to make their contribution and nevertheless use the fixed ropes. Also the self-proclaimed “professional climbers” who want to distance themselves from the clients of the commercial expeditions are in Furtenbach’s bad books: “Two Americans say they will climb with their 40-meter rope in Alpine style and won’t pay anything. In the same breath they explain that they will use our ropes when necessary.”

North side of Everest

Rapid is not enough, it should be as fast as a flash. This could describe the concept of the Austrian expedition operator Lukas Furtenbach: for eight-thousander aspirants with a big pile of money, but little time budget. After the US operator Alpenglow had halved the duration of an Everest expedition with their “Rapid Ascent Expedition” from about 70 days to 34 days, the 39-year-old Tyrolean wants to go one step further next year. In spring 2018, the “Everest Flash Expedition” of Furtenbach Adventures on the Tibetan north side of the mountain is to last a maximum of four weeks.

Up to 16 bottles per person

Lukas Furtenbach

This is Furtenbach’s plan: The pre-acclimatization of the clients takes place at home for six to eight weeks with a special training plan and a newly developed hypoxic tent system, which is capable of simulating high camp nights up to an altitude of 7,300 meters. On the spot, there will be no more acclimatization climbs, but – of course, depending on the weather – a summit attempt. Furtenbach guarantees unlimited oxygen for each member. The plan is to use a special regulator “designed for us by Summit Oxygen, with a possible flow rate of up to eight liters per minute” (a flow rate of four liters per minute is currently common on Everest) and a total of up to 16 (!) oxygen bottles per client on the mountain.

Battle of material

“Alpine moral – if you want to use this terrible term – makes no difference whether half a bottle or 16 were used,” Lukas writes to me from Kathmandu. “It remains a climb with supplemental oxygen. But more oxygen makes the climb definitely safer. That’s a fact.” Material and staff should be “100 percent redundant”, says Furtenbach: “Bottles, masks, regulators and even Sherpas on the bench.” The whole thing has its price, which is on the upper end: US $ 95,000. Nevertheless, the expedition operator from Austria is convinced that his tactics “will develop into a new industrial standard within just a few years”. In his opinion, commercial climbing on the eight-thousanders has remained “on the level of the early 1990s”.

“Great room for experience”

Camp 1 on Everest North Col

This spring, Furtenbach will be with a team on the north side of Everest. Once again he wants to test the newly designed regulator during the expedition. It is clear to Lukas that he will trigger off a discussion with his radical concept. Here are his answers to three other questions I asked him:

Shorter expedition time also means less time for the Nepali or Tibetan staff. Will less money remain in the respective countries?

We need more Sherpas for the “Flash Expedition”, and they will be hired for at least the same time as on conventional expeditions because they prepare the route. Significantly more money will remain in the respective countries, definitely. We pay our Sherpas significantly better than other Western operators usually do.

Does the new concept lead to even more summit aspirants on the eight-thousanders, who actually do not have the necessary skills – because they say: Cool, that suits me, under these circumstances even I can do it?

Furtenbach on the summit of Everest (in 2016)

We look very carefully at each aspirant – no matter whether on a Flash or a normal expedition. If someone seems to us inexperienced or unsuitable, we offer him a special program to develop his skills, which may take a longer period, or we reject him in principle. The real problem on Everest is currently the uncontrolled hordes of mostly completely inexperienced Chinese and Indian clients of essentially two Nepali low-cost operators, who have been responsible for most of the deaths (clients and Sherpas) of the past years.

Flash Expeditions are certainly more attractive for the clients because they are not missing work for such a long time. However, doesn’t the special expedition experience fall by the wayside due to the short duration?

Four weeks are still a long time with plenty of space for adventure. For most people, even a four-week holiday is a far-away dream. Nevertheless, we continue to offer a classic expedition on Everest, in which the members can approach the mountain in the way climbers have been doing for almost 50 years.