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.

Ralf trail-breaking up to Camp 1

Trail-breaking for nothing. “It has been snowing all day”, says Ralf Dujmovits in the basecamp on the Diamir side of Nanga Parbat. “We certainly have between 35 and 40 centimeter of fresh snow.” On his way to the toilet tent he slipped into a snowdrift and had trouble to get out of it. Ralf and his Polish companion Darek Zaluski know that they will have to break trail again when they climb up to the depot at 5500 meters which they had made yesterday. The fresh snow is also increasing the risk of avalanches. “If the wind doesn’t blow the snow out of the slopes, it will be impossible.”

More complicated than expected

Darek at 5400 meters

“I ‘m still reasonably confident,” says Ralf. “Darek not quite like that.” A large ice avalanche which had gone down during their night in the tent at 4900 meters had shown them drastically the continuing danger. “It made us understand that even in winter with steady temperatures of below minus 20 degrees Celsius we are not sure of ice avalanches – which gives us a lot of thinking.” After all, there is no way of avoiding the icefall with a huge ice barrier hanging about it. “I was hoping to be able to climb this 1000-meter-high section in only one push. But it became so complicated that finding the way through the crevasses and seracs really became a time consuming and scary task.”

Change tactics

Cooking in the wind

Maybe Ralf has to change his originally planned tactics: to climb up solo and extremely fast above 5000 meters. “ I’m losing my acclimatization. Maybe I have to work my way up camp by camp”, says the 52-year-old thoughtfully. “That was not really my plan.” Ralf, Darek, cook Essan, kitchen helper Karim and the three policemen at basecamp finish the year 2013 with a good dinner. “More than a New Year’s Eve menu is not possible in the cold we have here.” Should the snowfall  – as predicted – stop on New Year’s day, Ralf and Darek can possibly break up again on Thursday.